
Book 'FSS 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
METHODS 



^ 




•The 



EDUCATIONAL AIMS 
AND METHODS 



LECTURES AND ADDRESSES 



BY 

/ 

SIR JOSHUA FITCH, M.A., LL.D. 

LATE HER MAJESTY'S INSPECTOR OF TRAINING COLLEGES 

AUTHOR OF " LECTURES ON TEACHING," " NOTES ON AMERICAN 

SCHOOLS AND TRAINING COLLEGES " 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1900 

All rights reserved 



TWO COPIES «iicEivao. 
yff)c6 at tll« 

io3^ 



57571 



Copyright, 1900, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Nortoooti 5Pics3 

J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



\- r '-- 



SECOND COPY. /OCSy 



PREFACE 

The lectures and addresses collected in this volume 
have been given at various times within the last few 
years before different academic audiences in England or 
America, including the University of Cambridge, the Col- 
lege Association of Pennsylvania, the American Institute 
of Instruction, the Oxford Conference on University Ex- 
tension, the College of Preceptors, the Teachers' Guild, 
and other bodies interested in educational questions. 

In my former volume, ' Lectures on Teaching,' an 
attempt was made to discuss in succession the principles 
which should be borne in mind in connexion with each 
of the subjects of ordinary school instruction, and with 
the methods of teaching and discipline generally. The 
present volume is more miscellaneous and less systematic 
in its character. But it deals with some aspects of edu- 
cational work to which my own attention, during a long 
official life, has been specially directed, and which, though 
not usually dealt with in formal treatises on pedagogy, 
deserve and often demand the consideration of those w^ho 
as teachers, school trustees, or legislators possess influence 
in determining the goal to be attained in public education, 
and the processes by which that goal can best be reached. 

In forming our ideal of the function of a school, we 
cannot afford to overlook the border-land which separates 
its corporate life from the larger life of the family and the 



vi Preface 

community, nor the light which is shed on educational 
problems by history, by social and industrial necessities, 
by religious controversies, and by political events. It has 
become more and more evident of late that the true science 
of education of the future must include within its scope 
the history of former speculations, ideas, and experiments, 
and the reasons why some of them have succeeded and 
others failed. I have therefore thought it right to include 
in this volume two or three monographs on the life and 
work of prominent teachers. These studies may serve to 
show how varied are the instruments, and how widely dif- 
ferent the motive forces which have in successive periods 
of our history contributed to the establfshment of insti- 
tutions and to the formation of opinion on educational 
subjects. They will, I hope, leave on the reader's mind 
a conviction of the great debt we owe to those who, under 
divers conditions, with more or less imperfect vision of the 
future, but with an honest desire to meet the intellectual 
needs of their own times, brought their best powers and 
resources to bear on the elucidation of the principles, and 
the improvement of the practice of public instruction. 
And if this retrospect also leaves on the mind of the 
reader a strong sense, not only of the value, but of the 
inadequacy, of what has hitherto been done, and also 
serves to show how boundless and full of promise is the 
field which yet lies open to the future worker and explorer, 
my purpose in consenting to the collective publication of 
these occasional lectures will have been amply fulfilled. 

Easter, 1900. 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE I 

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE BIBLE 

The Bible a teaching book. Teaching by Symbol. Limitations to the value 
of symbolic acts, in ethical training. Direct injunction. Peremptoriness. 
The Law repeated with new sanctions and personal appeals. The Sermon 
on the Mount. Rewards. The true ambition of life. Poetry as a factor 
in education. Matthew Arnold's use of the Book of Isaiah. What poetry 
is suited for children. Characteristics of Hebrew poetry. Reduplication 
of thought. Stereotyped formularies and creeds. Proverbs better suited 
to older than to younger learners. Biography. National portraits. Ex- 
amples of greatness. Narrative power. Parables. Illustrations from 
Nature. False and strained moralizing from Nature. Co-operation of 
teacher and taught in the solution of problems. Vision and medita- 
tion. Dreamy and imaginative scholars not to be discouraged. Con- 
clusions 1-45 

LECTURE II 

SOCRATES AND HIS METHODS OF TEACHING 

State of Athens in the time of Socrates. The intellectual discipline of the 
Athenians. The art of Oratory. Socrates and his conversations. His 
disciples and reporters. A Socratic dialogue. Negative results not nec- 
essarily fruitless. Investigation of words and their meanings. Some 
methods more fitting for adults than for young learners. Ambiguity and 
verlial confusion. Gorgias. Relation of virtue to knowledge. The 
8aiix(i3v of Socrates. Oracles. Conversation an educational instrument. 
Need for occasional colloquies with elder scholars. Subjects suited for 
such colloquies. Handicraft. Physical Science. The doctrine of remi- 
niscence. Pre-natal existence. Socrates a preacher of righteousness. 
The accusation against him. His death ..... 46-80 

vii 



viii Contents 



LECTURE III 

THE EVOLUTION OF CHARACTER 

Charles Darwin. The main doctrines of Evolution. Their application to 
social life. Limits to the use of analogy. Character a growth, not a 
manufacture. Intellectual food and digestion. Punishments. Moral 
precepts. When general rules are operative. Didactic teaching. Expe- 
riences of childhood. The law of environment. The conditions of our 
life as determinants of character. How far these conditions are alterable 
at will. The moral atmosphere of a school. Influence of the teacher's 
personal character. Natural selection. Conscious selection of the fittest 
conditions. Degeneration. Unused faculties. Progression or retrogres- 
sion. The law of divergence in plants and animals, in social institutions, 
and in intellectual character. Special aptitudes and tastes. How far 
they should be encouraged. Eccentricity. Evolution a hopeful creed. 
The promise of the future ........ 81-113 

LECTURE IV 

THE TRAINING OF THE REASON 

The art of thinking. Reason v. understanding. Two processes of arriving 
at truth. The deductive process, e.g. in geometry, and in arithmetic. An 
arithmetical example. Measures and multiples. The number nine. Oral 
demonstration of arithmetical principles. Inductive reasoning. Practical 
work essential in the study of the physical sciences. Two neglected 
branches of physical enquiry. Natural History. Astronomy. Meteor- 
ology. Object lessons. Inductive exercises in language. Examples 
of verbal analysis. Apposition. Induction the test of the value of edu- 
cational methods. Child study. The three stages of progress in inductive 
science. The Kindergarten. Religious teaching to be largely judged by 
its results on character. The School a laboratory. Results . 1 14-144 

LECTURE V 

HAND WORK AND HEAD WORK 

Manual and technical instruction. Why it is advocated. Apprenticeship. 
Ecoles d'' Apprentissage. Technological Institutes. The Yorkshire College 
of Science. French technical schools, (i) for girls, (2) for artizans. 
The Frobelian discipline. Sweden and sloyd work. The ^cole Modele at 
Brussels. Drawing and design. Educational influence of manual train- 



Contents ix 

ing. The psychological basis for it. Variety of aptitude. The dignity 
of labour. Limitations to the claims of manual training. Needlework. 
General conclusions 145-176 

LECTURE VI 

ENDOWMENTS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON EDUCATION 

Turgot and the Encyclopedie. Charitable foundations in France. Avoidable 
and unavoidable evils. Almshouses. Religious charities : Tests and dis- 
qualifications. Colston's Charity in Bristol. The Girard College in Phila- 
delphia. Charities with restricted objects. Doles. Illegal bequests and 
useless charities. Educational charities. The early Grammar Schools. 
Charity Schools. Contrast between the educational endowments of the 
sixteenth and those of the eighteenth century. Causes of decadence. 
Influence on the teachers. The Endowed Schools Act of 1869. Origin 
of charitable endowments. The equitable rights of founders. The State 
interested in maintaining these rights. Endowments may encourage 
variety and new experiments : but sometimes prevent improvement. Con- 
ditions of vitality in endowed institutions: — That the object should be a 
worthy one : that the mode of attaining it should not be too rigidly 
prescribed. The Johns Hopkins University. Sir Josiah Mason's foun- 
dations. Supervision and needful amendment the duty of the State. 
Constitution of governing bodies. Publicity. Summary of practical con- 
clusions. England and America ...... 177-214 

LECTURE VII 

ASCHAM AND THE SCHOOLS OF THE RENAISSANCE 

The Modern English school the product of growth, not of legislation. The 
influence of religion. Greek served to shape the Creeds and theology. 
But Latin more studied and valued by the Church. The revival of Greek 
learning not due to the Church. Pre-Reformation Grammar Schools. 
Roger Ascham. The Scholemaster. Ascham's royal pupils. His experi- 
ence in Italy. St. Paul's School. Examples of Sixteenth century Statutes. 
Chester, Manchester, Louth. Choice. of masters. The scheme of study. 
Details of the Grammar School curriculum. Disputations. Hours of 
Study and of Teaching. Vacations. Punishments. Payment of fees. 
No provision for Girls' education. The Grammar School theory. How 
should it be modified by later experience? How much of it should 
survive? ........... 215-248 



Contents 



LECTURE VIII 

teachers' institutes and conventions in AMERICA 

Conditions of education in the United States, Teachers trained and un- 
trained. Institutes. Henry Barnard. Scope and aim of the Institutes. 
Voluntary associations of teachers. Co-operation of the clergy and public 
men. Summary of general purpose of Conventions. Newport, Rhode 
Island. The College Association of . Philadelphia. St. John, New 
Brunswick. Chautauqua. Reading Circles. Absence of educational 
politics. The corporate spirit among teachers. The Teachers' Guild and 
its future ........... 249-271 

LECTURE IX 

EDWARD THRING 

The biographical method of studying educational history. Arnold and Thring. 
Outlines of Thring's life. His biographers. Fellowships at King's Col- 
lege, Cambridge. Early practice in a National School. True principles 
of teaching applicable to schools of all grades. Uppingham. Boarding- 
houses. The School largely the product of private adventure. The Royal 
Commissioners. The Hegira. Uppingham by the sea. The teaching 
of English. Every boy good for something. Variety of employment and 
of games. Encouragement of music and the fine arts. The decoration 
of the school-room. Honour to lessons, Thring's books. His fancies. 
Characteristic extracts. Diaries. The Head-Masters' Conference. Head- 
Mistresses. Women as teachers. Settlement at North Woolwich. The 
Uppingham School Society. The prize system .... 272-309 

LECTURE X 

THE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION MOVEMENT, AND ITS RELATION 

TO SCHOOLS 

The University Extension Scheme. Its missionary character. Its possible 
influence on Schools, and on Training Colleges. Elementary teachers. 
Some special disadvantages in their life. Their extra-professional inter- 
ests. Certificate hunting. The study of history. English literature. Eco- 
nomic science. The study of nature and art. Teachers' societies. 310-325 



Contents xi 



LECTURE XI 

JOSEPH LANCASTER 

Public education in England at the end of the eighteenth century. Philan- 
thropic work. Private adventure schools for the poor. Crabbe's Borough. 
Day schools. Joseph Lancaster. His early life. His first educational 
experiment. Interview with the King. Successes. Dr. Andrew Bell. 
His work at Madras. The National Society. The monitorial system. 
Lancaster's plans of discipline. Their defects. His methods of instruc- 
tion. The schools of the National Society. Training of teachers. The 
National and Lancasterian systems compared. The treatment of the 
religious question. Lancaster's disappointments. Efforts of his friends to 
help him. His removal to America. Characters of Bell and Lancaster 
compared. Their work estimated 32^-357 

LECTURE XII 

PESTALOZZI 

The anniversary. Characteristics of Pestalozzi's teaching. Sense training. 
How he differed from Rousseau. His religious purpose. His rebellion 
against verbalism. No finality in his system .... 358-364 

LECTURE XIII 

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE 

Philanthropic efforts in England. Robert Raikes. The changed position 
of the Sunday Schools. The problem of the future. The Lord's Day 
and its purpose. The working man's Sunday. Home influence more 
potent than that of any school. Sunday in the home. The teacher. 
Conversation. Reading aloud. The School Library. Religious instruc- 
tion. A teacher's equipment. Need of preparation. Questioning. 
Verbal memory. Formularies. Catechising in church. Work for the 
educated laity. Children's services. Formation of a habit of attending 
public worship. General conclusions. The Sunday School not only a 
place for religious instruction, but a centre of civilization and social 
improvement 3*^5~393 



xii Contents 



LECTURE XIV 

WOMEN AND UNIVERSITIES 

A notable feature in the reign of Queen Victoria, Opening of professions to 
women. Public employments. Higher education. Women's education 
not provided by ancient endowments. Defoe's protest. Recent reforms. 
Why so slowly effected. The Schools' Inquiry Commission. Ancient 
endowments made available to girls. The Universities' Local Examina- 
tions. Girls' Public Day Schools. Social effects of this movement. The 
University of London. Provincial Colleges of University rank. The older 
Universities. Girton and Newnham. Health of students. A Woman's 
University. The true iiitcllectual requirements of women. The unused 
resources of life .......... 394-420 



LECTURE XV 

THE FRENCH LEAVING CERTIFICATE 

Certificat d' Etudes Primaires 

The French law authorizing the award of leaving certificates. Its influence 
on the attendance of scholars. Constitution of the local Commission., 
The standard of examination. Les Ecoles primaires superieures. The 
examinations not competitive. Statistics. Practical results. The English 
problem. The " standards." Individual examination. Its uses and de- 
fects. Certificates for special subjects. Labour certificates. The Scotch 
certificate of merit. The ideal primary school course. Optional subjects. 
Oral examination. The relation between school and home . 421-444 

Index 445-448 



EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND 
METHODS 



LECTURE I 

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION AS ILLUS- 
TRATED IN THE BIBLE! 

The Bible a teaching book. Teaching by S}Tnbol. Limitations to 
the value of symbolic acts, in ethical training. Direct injunc- 
tion. Peremptoriness. The Law repeated with new sanctions 
and personal appeals. The Sermon on the Mount. Rewards. 
The true ambition of life. Poetry as a factor in education. 
Mr Arnold's use of the Book of Isaiah. What poetry is suited 
for children. Characteristics of Hebrew poetry. Reduplica- 
tion of thought. Stereotyped formularies and creetls. Proverbs 
better suited to older than to younger learners. Biography. 
National portraits. Examples of greatness. Narrative power. 
Parables, Illustrations from Nature. False antl strained mor- 
alizing from Nature. Co-operation of teacher and taught in the 
solution of problems. Vision and meditation. Dreamy and 
imaginative scholars not to be discouraged. Conclusions, 

It has seemed to me that in inviting you to enter The Bible 
upon some further considerations on the principles of ^ ^^^^f^^^^-g 
teaching and on the application of those principles to 
the practice of your profession, it might not be unfitting 
to devote one of our meetings to an enquiry into the 
ways in which the problem has been dealt with in the old- 
est educational book in the world. The Bible has many 
claims upon our attention — claims which are universally . 
recognized in all Christian nations at least. There is 

1 Delivered in the University of Cambridge, Lent Term, 1898. 
B I 



2 Methods of Instruction as illustrated in tJie Bible 

in it history, poetry, philosophy, theology. Critical dis- 
cussion on these aspects of the Scriptures would be out 
of place here. Yet it is a collection of books which has 
had a large share in the education of the world ; and 
while we may properly leave to the antiquarian, to the 
scholarly critic and to the theologian the duty of com- 
menting on the substance of Bible teaching, we who are 
in quest of the best methods of communicating truth and 
of influencing character may well fasten our attention 
upon the forms into which the sacred writers have cast 
their lessons, upon the processes by which they have 
imparted truth, and upon the light shed in those writings 
on some problems, still, though under altered conditions, 
constantly presented to those who are concerned with 
the instruction and moral discipline of the young. 
Teaching Now some of the earliest lessons employed in the 
by Symbol, education of our race took the form — not of direct moral 
teaching, but of injunctions relating to specific acts. The 
patriarchs were instructed to perform sacrifices or to set 
up a stone oi^a monument. Abraham, when he needed 
a lesson on the necessity of obedience and self-surrender, 
was not lectured on the importance of those virtues, but 
was bidden to go up to a mountain, and to perform an act 
of sacrifice. The institution of the Passover and of other 
Jewish festivals represents to us a form of teaching rather 
by symbolical acts than by direct explanation or counsel. 
The Jews were intended to keep in memory their great 
deliverance, their years of discipline, their dependence on 
a Divine and governing providence, but long before we 
hear of any definite exhortation on these points we find 
a number of ceremonial observances which put all such 
exhortations in a concrete form. The unleavened bread, 
the Paschal lamb, the feast of tabernacles carry in them- 
selves their own memories, and their own ethical teaching. 



TeacJiijig by Symbol 



To this hour they serve as the chief bonds of the whole 
Jewish community, and the main safeguards for the 
preservation of the historical Hebrew faith. They may 
remind us that the x:hosen nation in its childhood was 
largely taught by means of picturesque and representative 
acts, and that these acts were to be performed before 
their full significance was understood, and before the 
conscience or the power of reflection had been awakened 
into life by persuasion or argument. 

What is true in the infancy of society and of nations 
is true also of the childhood of every human being. It 
is at first easier to enforce the observance of particular 
acts than to make their meaning intelligible. This may 
be observed in secular hfe, in domestic life, and in 
religious life alike. In America there are the Fourth of 
July and Washington's birthday ; in a home the birthday 
of its members, the little acts of deference to the heads 
of the household, the simple ritual of family prayer ; in 
the Church the observance of the first day of the week 
and the outward acts of religious worship. We let our 
children share in these observances ; we do not try to 
explain all the reasons for them, but we know that latent 
in them there is teaching which will become intelhgible 
hereafter, and which meanwhile must remain undisclosed. 
Thus we value Sunday, not only because it is an oppor- 
tunity for religious instruction and worship, but because 
by its comparative hush and calm, and by all the social 
arrangements which separate it from other days, it stands 
out to the child's mind as a permanent symbol of the 
claims of the higher life. It is a visible representation 
and a continual memento of the truths that ' man does 
not live by bread alone,' that our days must not all be 
spent in work or in enjoyment, but that thought, rest, and 
spiritual culture are among the necessaries of life. So all 



4 Methods of Instruction as illustrated in the Bible 



ethical 
training. 



the outward symbolical acts which imply reverence for 
sacred things, respect and courtesy to elders have their 
value. " Manners makyth man " because they beget habits, 
and habits in their turn form character. Such acts as 
imply and also encourage self-respect yet self-abnegation 
and deference to the wishes and feelings of others, 
when habitually practised in the school or in the home, 
tend to keep ahve in the young scholar a sense of duty, 
long before any rational principles of conduct, such as 
he can understand, can be enforced upon him in an 
explicit form. 
Limita- We may not forget, however, that there is a deep and 

tions to the ygj-y real danger in the multiplication of ceremonial acts, 
TyinboHc ^^"d that life may be rendered complicated and artificial 
act^s in by the use of them. They come in time to be regarded 
as ends in themselves rather than as means to the 
higher end of true ethical discipline. It is observable 
how, both in regard to belief and practice, there is a 
tendency in human nature to be satisfied with the mate- 
rial symbols of faith and duty, and with the 'outward 
and visible sign ' rather than with the ' inward and 
spiritual grace.' Forms of superstition have flourished 
and will continue to flourish in all ages, in just the pro- 
portion in which men shrink from the task of exercising 
their best faculties on great subjects, and take refuge in 
the performance of a ceremony, the oral recitation of a 
formula, or the observance of a day. It is always much 
easier to do any one of these mechanical acts than to 
think about its meaning, or to appropriate the truth which 
it embodies. And we shall do well in our intercourse 
with children to keep in mind the essentially provisional 
and incomplete nature of all symbolical teaching. It is 
valuable only in the proportion in which it leads the 
learner to something better than itself and to a recogni- 



Direct and positive injunction 5 

tioii of its underlying moral or spiritual significance. 
When it is a substitute for reflection, instead of an aid to 
reflection, it becomes a fetish. We must deal with it, as 
Hezekiah found it necessary to do when he brake in pieces 
the brazen serpent which Moses had made, and which 
had once been a legitimate object of veneration, " because 
in those days the children of Israel did burn incense to 
it," and he called it Nehushtan, ' a mere piece of brass.' ^ 
But let us once be sure that the duty or the truth 
symbolized by some outward form or usage is one in 
which we entirely believe, and which we wish the young 
scholar hereafter to make his own, and we need not fear, 
for a time at least, to adopt the method by which belief 
was strengthened and conduct shaped in the primitive 
stage of the world's history. It is observable that Moses 
in all his injunctions about the Passover ordained that 
the ritual in all its details should be observed during the 
wandering in Egypt. "And it shall come to pass that 
when you be come to the land which the Lord will give 
you, and when your children say unto you, What mean 
you by this service? that ye shall say. It is the sacrifice 
of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of 
the children of Israel when He smote the Egyptians, and 
dehvered our houses." That therefore is one of the pro- 
cesses of the Divine education. Practise for the present 
the representative acts which recall great events, or 
symbolize great truths and duties, and some day their 
full meaning shall be revealed to you. 

Later on we find the great lawgiver employing an- Direct in- 
other method — that of direct and positive injunction. •^^^"'^ ^^'^' 
The commandments of the two tables possess two 
prominent characteristics : (i) they are mainly negative ; 
they denounce certain special forms of wrong-doing, and 
1 2 Kings xviii, 4. 



6 MetJiods of Instruction as illiLstrated in the Bible 

they say definitely respecting each of them, 'This must 
not be done.' But (2) with only two or three exceptions 
no reason is assigned for the prohibition : the sanction 
on which the Law rests is not discussed. The tables of 
the Law forbid wrong acts, but they do not enjoin any 
form of virtue. They tell what a good man should 
abstain from and not what he should do. And it is 
remarkable that in the case of the two or three com- 
mandments for which Moses furnishes any ethical basis 
or explanation, the reason given happens to be one which 
is local, tribal, or temporary, and not one which is of 
universal application. \\\ the Second Commandment, 
for example, the prohibition is not directed against 
idolatry generally, but against the making of images, or 
the imitation in any form, of natural objects. To Moses, 
who knew the people well, and who had much experience 
of their constant relapses into the grosser forms of fetish 
worship then prevalent among the neighbouring nations, 
there seemed to be an awful and very real danger in the 
mere making of a picture or a graven image, whatever 
might be the use intended to be made of it. To us, all 
of whose temptations to idolatry lie in other directions, 
the argument that God is a jealous God, who will not 
tolerate as a rival a sculptured or a molten image, is 
scarcely relevant. The warning against idolatry is, in- 
deed, eternally necessary, but it is not in our day the 
love of the fine arts which is likely to seduce us from our 
allegiance to the King of kings. The Christian Church 
has never in any age attempted a literal obedience to the 
injunctions of the Second Commandment. To do so 
would betoken on her part a total incapacity for dis- 
tinguishing between the letter and the spirit, between the 
temporary and the permanent elements in the Mosaic 
law. So also the obligation to keep one day in seven 



Pereinptoriness of tJic Contmandniciits 7 

free from work is based by Moses not on general 
expediency, nor on any considerations respecting the 
religious value of a weekly respite from ordinary pursuits, 
but on the statement that " in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth, and rested on the seventh day" — an 
argument which, however weighty to those to whom it 
was first addressed, has been deprived of much of its 
significance by all subsequent additions to our knowledge 
of cosmogony. Again, the Fifth Commandment enjoins 
a duty which is of perennial obligation, but the particular 
motive appealed to, " that thy days may be long in the 
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee," had clearly a 
special application to a nomadic people on their way to 
a home in which they hoped to abide. At best, the 
motive suggested for honouring and obeying parents was 
founded on considerations of self-interest and not on 
any one of those higher sanctions which the enlightened 
conscience in all ages of the world would be most ready 
to recognize. 

We may conclude therefore that the force of the Ten Peremp- 
Commandments, and their claim to be still embodied \x)^^'^^"''^^^^^- 
the service of the modern Church, does not lie in the 
kind of justification which the lawgiver has in one or two 
instances attached to them, but in their directness and 
peremptoriness. There was a stage, a very early stage, 
in the history of the chosen people, wherein what they 
needed most was positive injunction respecting absti- 
nence from certain faults, to which, owing to the special 
circumstances of their lives, they were most prone. 
There is a similar stage in the lives of the young learners 
under our charge. The language of the domestic law- 
giver or of the teacher must sometimes be that of Moses 
and Aaron : '' Do this, abstain from that, because I am 
in authority and I tell you. We will not discuss the 



8 Methods of Instrtiction as illustrated in the Bible 

grounds of the prohibition. The thing is wrong and 
must not be done. Some day you will understand why 
it is wrong. Meanwhile it must suffice for you to know 
that I forbid it. ' Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not 
bear false witness.' That is enough for you." 
The Law But even as Moses when he had once promulgated 
repeated ^^ Commandments was not satisfied to leave the people 

70 it a new ^ ^ 

sanctions, whom he was called upon to help and guide in a con- 
and per- ^jitjon of moral serfdom, so the teacher who is rightly 

sotial ap- , . . . o y 

peals. impressed with a sense of the obligations of his own 
office will not be content when he has merely laid down 
rules and secured submission to them. Observe how 
Moses, when he was old, set about the further task of 
explaining the nature and grounds of his precepts, and 
claiming the intelligent sympathy of those who were 
called on to practise them. Deuteronomy — the dupli- 
cated, re-stated and amplified law — represents a later 
and most memorable stage in the education of the Jewish 
people. Throughout the whole of the book bearing that 
name you will find an effort to vindicate the essential 
equity of the Divine commands, to abandon the ground 
of mere authority and to appeal to the conscience, the 
loyalty, the experience and the good sense of the people 
themselves. Listen to the voice of Moses, as he enume- 
rates the blessings those people had enjoyed under the 
Divine government, and seeks to awaken in them a sense 
of gratitude and of moral obligation : 

*' For tliis commandment which 1 command thee this day, it is 
not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that 
thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it 
unto us that we may hear it and do it? Neither is it beyond the 
sea that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and 
bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? But the word is 
very nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thine heart, that thou mayest do 
it. See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and 



The Laiv repeated zvitJi nezu sanctions 9 

evil * * * that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou 
mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him, for 
he is thy life and the length of thy days, that thou mayest dwell in 
the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to 
Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." ^ 

Here is still, we observe, the motive of self-interest 
— the offered reward of peace and prosperity in the 
promised land ; but it is much less prominent than 
before. This language may serve as a reminder — a very 
instructive and powerful reminder — to a teacher, of the 
kind of sanction he should seek for all the orders and 
rules he gives. His work as a legislator and administrator 
in the little world in which he reigns supreme is not 
accomphshed until he has done what Moses did with the 
people of Israel, appealed to their intelligence and sought 
to awaken in them a sense, not only of the moral claims 
of the lawgiver, but also of the necessity and the beauty 
of law. Enforced obedience does not deserve to be 
called obedience at all — certainly it cannot be regarded 
as moral discipline. He who obeys a law because he is 
obHged under penalty to obey it, is but a slave after all. 
You want to bring up a race of free agents,^ of children 

1 Deuteronomy xxx. ii — 20. 

2 Here is your child. Wrong as all children are, just because 
they are human creatures, how shall you set him right? Is not the 
whole problem of your education this — to educate the will and 
not to break it. Perhaps it might be easy, with all the tremendous 
purchase of your parental power, to break your child's will if 
you chose. But what have you got then? A poor, spiritless, will- 
less creature incapable of good as he is incapable of evil, with 
nothing to contribute to either side of the great battle of humanity 
which is going on about him. That is not what you want. To 
keep the will, to fill it with more and more life, but to make it so 
wise that it shall spend its strength in goodness — that is your true 
ambition as the trainer of your child. And when some friend 
disheartened with your slowness comes to you and says, " Why do 



o Methods of Instruction as illustrated in the Bible 



who as they grow will so incorporate into their own lives 
the law of duty that they will need no physical or 
external restraint, but will understand something of that 
spirit of self-surrender, which finds expression in Words- 
worth's Ode to Duty : 

Oft, when in my heart was heard 
Thy timely mandate, I deferr'd 
The task imposed from day to day; 
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. 

Through no disturbance of my soul, 
Or strong compunction in me wrought, 
I supplicate for thy control; 
But in the quietness of thought; 
Me this unchartered freedom tires, 
I feel the weight of chance-desires. 
My hopes no more must change their name, 
1 long for a repose that ever is the same. 

Very nearly akin is this language of a nineteenth 
century poet to the language of the Hebrew king, " Oh 
how I love Thy law ! it is my meditation all the day. 
Thy testimonies are my delight and my counsellors. 
Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my 
pilgrimage. The law of Thy mouth is dearer to me than 
thousands of gold and silver." All through these and 
the like outpourings you hear little or nothing about the 
penalties of breaking the law, or about the good land 

you not settle the whole matter once f(jr all by breaking the child's 
will to pieces and compelling obedience whether he wants to obey 
you or not?" you reply, "I cannot do that; obedience won in 
that way would not be obedience. To prevent badness so, would 
be to prevent goodness also." What is that conversation but the 
translation into household language of the old conversation of the 
farmer and his servants : " Wilt thou that we go and gather up the 
tares?" "Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also 
the wheat with them." — Bishop Phillips Brooks. 



The Sermon on the Mount 1 1 

and the long life of which Moses says so much. The 
Psalmists had got beyond that stage of educational dis- 
cipline. Read the hundred and nineteenth Psalm, which 
is a sustained poean on the majesty and beauty of the 
Divine law. Consider that the chief literature of the 
Jewish people — the Talmud and the Targums — consists 
of comments and amplifications of the statutes and 
ordinances as given by Moses, and it will be plain that 
all that is best in Jewish history connects itself with 
reverence for the Law and with a desire to interpret and 
to apply it. Grant then that during the period of our 
pupil's life, before conscience and sympathy can be 
aroused, many of our commands must necessarily be 
unexplained ; we may not forget that the training of the 
responsible human being must ever remain incomplete 
until he is made to recognize the value of the injunctions 
he is expected to obey. As occasion offers, and as 
scholars grow in years and experience, we do well to let 
them see as far as we can why we impose our own will 
on theirs. We need not fear that doing this implies any 
loss of dignity, or of personal authority. It merely implies 
that you are leading them by degrees to rely on something 
better than your personal authority, upon the intuitions of 
conscience and on the law of God. 

The whole drift and purpose of the Sermon on the The Scr- 

Mount He in this direction. It aims throughout at the ^"V^ ^'^ ^^'^ 

,..-.. ^ mount. 

substitution of a principle or a general law of action for 

the authoritative enforcement of specific rules. '' Ye 
have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt not kill, 
and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judg- 
ment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry 
with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of 
the judgment." In this spirit, each of the specific in- 
junctions of the old law is considered in turn and shewn 



1 2 Methods of Instruction as illustrated in the Bible 

to be practically absorbed and superseded by the higher 
law, which concerns itself with the motives of human 
action. When once this higher law is duly recognized 
and welcomed all formal rules and ordinances become 
well-nigh superfluous. And indeed the whole Sermon 
on the Mount is characterized by the way in which 
concrete examples are treated in the light of large general 
principles, although those principles are not themselves 
enunciated in an abstract form. On this point Professor 
Seeley appositely remarks : 

"The style of the Sermon on the Mount is neither purely philo- 
sophical nor purely practical. It refers throughout to first princii-les, 
but it does not state them in an abstract form : on the other han^l, 
it enters into special cases and detail, but never so far as to lose 
sight of first principles. It is equally unlike the early national 
codes, which simply formularized without method existing customs, 
and the early moral treatises, such as those of Plato and Aristotle, 
which are purely scientific. Of Jewish writers it resembles most the 
book of Deuteronomy, in which the Mosaic law was recapitulated 
in such a manner as to make the principles on which it was 
founded apparent; of Gentile writings it may l)e compared with 
those of Epictetus, Aurelius, and Seneca, in which we see a 
scientific morality brought to bear upon the struggles and details of 
actual life. It uses all the philosophical machinery of generalization 
and distinction, but its object is not philosophical but practical — 
that is, not truth, but good." ^ 

The framers of the English Liturgy in one of th.e 
collects address Him " Whose service is perfect freedom," 
and in another, pray that we " may love the thing tliat 
thou commandest and desire that which thou dost 
promise." This certainly was the thought of St Paul 
when after describing the Law as a schoolmaster he 
clenched the whole of a memorable argument with 
the words, " Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ 
hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the 

^ Ecce Homo. 



Rewards 1 3 

yoke of bondage." ^ If our schemes of moral discipline 
do not contemplate this result as the ultimate goal to 
be attained, however halting and imperfect are the steps 
by which it is approached, those schemes themselves are 
necessarily faulty. It is good of course that our scholars 
should shape their conduct according to the rules which 
we prescribe, but it is still better that they should acquire 
the power of self-government and become in the highest 
and best sense a law unto themselves. 

In considering the methods of moral discipline Reivards. 
adopted or described in the Bible, it is well to refer for 
a moment to the light thrown by the sacred writers on 
the manner in which the rewards of life are distributed. 
Bacon has said, " Prosperity is the blessing of the Old 
Testament; adversity the blessing of the New." He 
shews that this general statement is subject to some 
exceptions, for he adds that even " if you listen to David's 
harp, you shall hear as many hearse-hke airs as carols." - 
Long life, corn and wine, flocks and herds, honour and 
wealth are more frequently referred to as the rewards of 
obedience in the Old than in the New Testament. But 
here again the generalization must be qualified. There 
is a remarkable episode in the life of Solomon, which 
illustrates the inadequacy of merely material prosperity as 
an object of ambition. The young sovereign is repre- 
sented as seeing a vision, and hearing a voice, " Ask what 
I shall give thee," and his answer was, " ' O Lord, my God, 
I am but a little child * * * Give therefore thy servant a 
wise and understanding heart, to judge thy people, that I 
may discern between good and bad ; for who is able to judge 
this thy so great people?' And this speech pleased the 
Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said 
unto him, ' Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast 
1 Galations. v. i. ^ Essay on Adversity. 



14 methods of Iiistructioji as illustrated in the Bible 

not asked for thyself long life, neither hast asked riches 
for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies, but 
hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment ; 
behold I have done according to thy words. Lo, I have 
given thee a wise and understanding heart. * * * And I 
have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both 
riches and honour, so that there shall not be any among 
the kings like thee all thy days.' And Solomon woke 
and behold it was a dream." ^ But it was a dream of 
profound significance, for it reveals to us the true and 
enduring connexion between the duties of life and the 
rewards of life. Success, wealth and prosperity, if sought 
for their own sakes, may often elude the seeker ; but he 
who first of all desires the wisdom and the power needed 
for the right fulfilment of duty is often found to obtain 
them and also something which he has not asked, both 
riches and honour. In the New Testament the same 
great law of the Divine ruler of the world is expressed in 
the words, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness, and all these things — what ye shall eat and 
what ye shall drink — shall be added unto you." 
T/ie true The words used in the parable of the Talents illus- 

ainoiiioij 

trate a further view of the true nature of rewards and 
punishments. From the unprofitable servant the talent 
was taken away that he might no longer misuse or hide 
it, but the diligent and conscientious servant is told, 
" Thou haSt been faithful over a few things, I will make 
thee ruler over many things." " Have thou authority over 
ten cities." Herein lies a key to the Divine economy as 
regards human service, and to the whole philosophy of 
human ambition. The faithful servant is not offered rest 
or luxury, or any immediate visible compensation; but 
more duty, higher responsibility, the rule over a larger 
1 I Kings iii. 5 — 15. 



o/li/e. 



The true ambition of life 1 5 

province, power to become a still more honoured and 
useful servant. I think this is a view of the relations 
bet\veen duty and reward which we shall be wise to keep 
prominently in view of our scholars, who at the threshold 
of life are looking wistfully forward into the unknown 
future, and are filled with vague ambitions and with 
hopes of success. Books such as those of Dr Smiles, 
with stories of great engineers and of * men who have 
risen,' possess a very intelligible fascination for many 
boys ; but they present, after all, a somewhat ignoble, or 
at least an incomplete view of life's meaning and purpose. 
' Getting on ' should be set before the young and hopeful 
pupil, not merely as rising to higher social rank or larger 
fortune, though it may and often does mean this ; but 
rather getting to that work which we can do best, and 
which calls into exercise our highest faculties. The true 
prizes of life are not gifts or large salaries, or material 
advantages ; but honour, influence, opportunities of use- 
fulness, power to be of service to others, and especially to 
add to the happiness of those whom we love. Fortunately 
these prizes are not competitive ; no one in winning them 
prevents another from gaining them. They are accessible 
to every earnest and honest student, whether he gains 
school distinctions and a prosperous career or not. In 
organizing a school, and in assigning duties, a teacher has 
many opportunities of keeping this principle in view. 
He is subject to special temptation to over-rate talent — 
the sort of mental endowment which saves himself 
trouble as a teacher, and brings repute to his school ; 
but one of his highest duties is to recognize the merit of 
commonplace abilities, and to furnish full encourage- 
ment and opportunity for their use. The worship of 
mere cleverness is often fatal to the growth of what is 
morally excellent in a place of education. So although a 



1 6 Methods of Iiistriictio7i as illustrated i)i tJie Bible 

good teacher will not deem it necessary to say much on 

this subject, he will none the less effectually make his 

pupils aware that in the microcosm of school there is 

room for the exercise of varied talents and for generous 

ambition ; and that possibilities of being useful to others 

are within reach of all the scholars, whether distinguished 

or undistinguished. " To one the Master has given five 

talents, to another two, and another one," but for all 

alike there is the promise of the crowning recompense, 

" Well done, good and faithful servant." 

Poetry as a The reader of the Bible who traces with care the 

factor in processes by which the Jewish people were gradually 

education. ^ ■' j i i o y 

taught and guided, cannot fail to be impressed with the 

part played by song and poetry in that educational 
discipline. Recall the exulting song of Miriam, after the 
first deliverance at the Red Sea, the wild coronach of 
Deborah the prophetess, the lament of David over Saul 
and Jonathan, and it will become evident that passion, 
fervour, melody, and lofty imagery, were often employed 
by the sacred writers to deepen sentiments of gratitude or 
patriotism which else would have proved evanescent. 
Hebrew poetry finds its highest artistic expression in the 
Book of Psalms, which have proved not only to the 
Jewish nation but to devout souls in all subsequent ages 
a help and solace, and a source of spiritual exaltation. 
The Book of Isaiah also, with its rich and eloquent 
prophecies of Israel's restoration, may remind us that his 
glowing language not only bore a large part in the educa- 
tion of the Hebrew race, but also did much to shape its 
history and its fortunes. He of all the prophets appealed 
most powerfully to the patriotism, the imagination and 
the religious instincts of his countrymen, because his lips 
had been touched with the sacred fire, and because in 
his utterances instruction became Divine illumination and 



Mr ArnohVs use of t lie Book of Isaiah 17 

hope became rapture. St Jerome called him an evange- 
list rather than a prophet, and St Ambrose's first counsel 
to Augustine after his conversion was that he should read 
the prophecies of Isaiah. 

I have elsewhere referred ^ to the use which the late Mr M. 

Matthew Arnold desired to make of some parts of the "^^'^^^fj 

* use oj the 

Book of Isaiah as a poetic utterance of which even our Book of 
own generation could not help feehng the glow and ^^'■^^'■^^• 
animation. The prophet's profound belief that the great 
unrighteous kingdoms of the heathen could not stand, and 
that the world's salvation lay in recourse to the God of 
Israel gave to his words a dignity which made them of 
universal application. '' Speak ye comfortably to Jeru- 
salem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, 
and that her iniquity is pardoned," is a proclamation not 
confined in its meaning to the history of the Israelites. 
And when Matthew Arnold edited the latter portion of 
the prophecy of Isaiah and cast it into the form of 
a school reading-book, he did not of course expect that 
English children would understand all its meaning. He 
certainly would have been disappointed to know that the 
book had been ' got up ' for analysis, or that its words 
and allusions had been studied with a view to an exami- 
nation. But he knew how much the imagination of a 
child may be kindled by large thoughts and lofty 
language, and he thought it a sin to overlook the educa- 
tive influence of the Hebrew poetry, merely because it 
might be difficult for a modern teacher to interpret the 
whole of its meaning. As we read the impassioned 
sentences of the older seers and prophets, listen to the 
roll and musical cadence of their verse, and mount up with 
them to the Pisgah heights from which they were able to . 

^ TJwHias and Matthew Arnold and their influence on English 
iLiiiuation, p. 195. 
C 



1 8 MetJiods of Instruction as illnstyated iii the Bible 

survTy the history and the destiny of mankind, we become 
aware that the culture of the imagination plays a great part 
in determining the character of a race and the develop- 
ment of a human being. A system of teaching which is 
purely scientific, which deals with no truth but that which 
is known and can be verified, is essentially incomplete. 
Herbert Spencer, in his well-known book on Education, 
dwells with just emphasis on science — reasoned, organized 
knowledge — as the main object of instruction. But he 
leaves out of view the " thoughts that breathe and words 
that burn," the poetry which gladdens and ennobles life, 
and carries us into the region of the unseen and the con- 
ceivable — a region unexplored by the philosopher, the 
physicist and the moralist, and lying beyond their ken. We 
iV/iat have to recognize that there lies, more or less suppressed 
suited for "^^^ Overlaid, in every human being, the faculty which 
children, responds to noble words and inspiring thoughts, and that 
it is a high duty of a teacher to find worthy exercise for 
this faculty. Hence it has come to be generally admitted 
that the learning of poetry by heart should form part of 
the course of instruction in all good schools. But we 
have to take care that what is so learned shall be real 
poetry, and not ornamental nonsense. The childish 
narrative and trite morality disguised in pretty rhymes 
may serve, with very young children, to please the ear 
and to furnish a relief from graver employments. But as 
an educational instrument, to be employed with scholars 
who are old enough to think, the only poetry which has 
any value is that which does something to refine the taste, 
to quicken the imagination and to hft the learner on to a 
higher plane of thought and feeling than that on which 
he habitually dwells. This condition is not fulfilled 
when a writer tries to put as much theology as he can 
into the sacred poetry which children are asked to learn, 



CJiaracteristics of Hebreiv poetry 19 

or when the teacher confines his choice to those verses 
which seem to him to embody the most valuable moral 
truths. It is not so much the office of poetry to give 
instruction as to supply inspiration and to excite right 
emotion. In all scientific and didactic lessons, harm is 
done no doubt when we soar beyond the comprehension 
of the learner, and call upon him to assent to proposi- 
tions which he does not understand. But in that part of 
intellectual discipline which concerns the training of the 
imagination there is no harm, but much advantage in 
transcending the boundaries of a child's present knowl- 
edge and experience, and in filling him with a vague 
sense of the mystery and the richness of the world which 
lies beyond them. In choosing a poem to be read or 
committed to memory, we should beware of taking the 
scholar's actual mental condition and surroundings as the 
measure of its appropriateness. We should seek for 
strong thoughts, for noble or devout aspiradon, for a 
widened horizon, and for artistic beauty of form ; and if 
these be secured we need feel no regret that the poetry 
is not wholly intelligible by any faculty of the pupil, 
or wholly explicable by any faculty of ours. Let us 
leave some room for the exercise of wonderment, for the 
consciousness of present limitations and inferiority, and 
for the hope that the meaning, which is now obscure, will 
some day be disclosed ; and then we may rest assured 
that we have made a substantial addition to the mental 
and spiritual outfit of the pupil, even though the imme- 
diate result of our teaching fails to satisfy any test which 
we or the most skilful of examiners could devise. 

There is one characteristic of the Hebrew poetry Character 
which 2;ives it special value in the eyes of teachers, "f'f"^ ^-^ 

^ ^ . ^ ■' Hebrew 

I mean the way in which the same thought is often poetry. 
repeated in at least two different forms. You do not 



20 MetJiods of histniction as illtist rated in the Bible 



Rednpli- 
cation of 
thought. 



need to be reminded that the intellectual influence of 
poetry is not altogether dependent on the value of the 
fact or thought which it embodies, but largely results 
from a certain charm and grace in the form into which 
it is cast. For example our English verse is distinguished, 
as to its metrical structure, by the symmetrical arrange- 
ment of its lines, by the regular recurrence of accented 
and unaccented syllables, and by the use of certain verbal 
assonances which we call rhymes. Take a single stanza 
from the Ancient Mariner in illustration : 

" It ceased, yet still the sails made on 
A pleasant noise till noon, 
A noise like of a hidden brook 
In the leafy month of June, 
That to the sleeping woods all night 
Singeth a quiet tune." 

We recognize here that the regular recurrence of 
similar sounds and accents gives a musical setting and 
an added charm to whatever is attractive in the descrip- 
tion itself. In like manner our Anglo-Saxon and Norse 
forefathers found gratification to the ear in what is called 
alliteration, the regular repetition of similar sounds at 
the beginning of the several lines and words. In Greek 
and Roman poetry the rhythm depended neither on 
accent nor on rhyme, but on the quantity — the length 
or shortness of syllables recurring according to a pre- 
scribed law, and thus specially suiting the verse for 
musical accompaniment. But in the Hebrew poetry 
there are none of these artifices. In their stead we 
have the regular recurrence of the same thought in two 
different forms, so that the result is a metrical system 
rather of ideas than of words and syllables. But this 
sort of reduplication is not less impressive — nay, it is 
not less musical when the ear once becomes attuned 



Reduplication of thoiigJit 2 1 

to it — than the more mechanical forms of versification 
in use among other nations. Even in our Enghsh trans- 
lation this characteristic of the Hebrew poetry is audible 
to us : 

(i) The heavens declare the glory of God, 

And the firmament sheweth liis handiwork, 
(ii) Day unto day uttereth speech, 

And night unto night sheweth knowledge, 
(iii) I have considered the days of old 

The years of ancient time, 
(iv) Is his mercy clean gone for ever? 

And will he be favourable no more? 
(v) Hath God forgotten to be gracious? 

Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies, 
(vi) Thy word is a lamp unto my feet 

And a light unto my path, 
(vii) He niaketh me to lie down in green pastures, 

He leadeth me beside the still waters, 
(viii) Thy righteousness is like the strong mountains, 

Thy judgments are like the great deep. 

As these and the like resounding sentences fall upon 
our ears we cannot help feeling that the reduplication 
of the thought is at least as effective a poetical device 
as any of the merely verbal assonances and uniformities 
to which we are accustomed in other poetry. But to 
teachers this characteristic of the Hebrew verse is especi- 
ally suggestive, for it may remind us of one principle of 
pedagogic science which is true everywhere and in all 
ages of the world. Iteration and reiteration are the 
distinguishing marks of the process adopted by the Bible 
teachers. But it is the reiteration of thought rather 
than of words. The image, the precept, the prayer, are 
repeated, but the language is varied. Now this practice 
might be defended — if defence were needed — on two 
different grounds. Minds differ no less in their receptive 
than in their cognitive powers. Truth, which in one 



22 Methods of Instruction as illustrated in the Bible 

form finds ready entrance into some minds, needs to be 
cast into another form in order to appeal to minds of a 
different stamp. Hence to present the same idea in two 
aspects and under two or more forms of language is to 
give it an additional chance of obtaining admission into 
the understanding of some of those whom we teach. 
And a deeper reason still is to be found in the fact that 
every truth admits of being stated in more than one 
shape, and that the resources of language, great as 
they are, are far from being commensurate with all the 
demands of the human reason, or with the many-sided 
nature of truth itself. There is no one form of words 
which will adequately embody the whole meaning of any 
doctrine or precept we wish to enforce ; and we ourselves 
are never quite sure that we have grasped a truth, until 
we have turned it round in our minds, and learned to 
express it in different forms. 
Stereotyped Herein lies a warning against relying too much on 
pnnua- formularies, and against the excessive use of catechisms 

ries ana ' ° 

creeds. and memory lessons. They often serve rather as sub- 
stitutes for real teaching than as aids to it. It is observ- 
able that the only formulary in the New Testament is 
a prayer — a form of devotion, not a creed or an explicit 
declaration of belief in certain propositions. It was not 
consistent with our I^ord's method of instruction to write 
a book or to dictate a code or articles of faith. No 
doubt in the later stages in the development of the 
Christian Church, it has been found both useful and 
expedient to put together in a formal shape a group of 
theological statements, and to require that they should 
be accepted by the members of the Church as a symbol 
of religious unity. The Council of Nicaea, the West- 
minster Assembly, and the framers of the Church 
Catechism, have set forth detailed declarations of the 



Creeds and formularies 23 

articles of Christian belief, and have made the intellectual 
reception of these articles the condition and the test of 
Church membership. Experience has shewn the con- 
venience of this practice. The desire for definiteness 
and certitude is always strong in the minds of many, 
especially in those who are least instructed and least 
accustomed to the exercise of thought. Creeds and 
formularies satisfy this desire. They are easily harboured 
in the memory, whether they have found their way to 
the understanding or not. Yet they embody for us only 
what some society or council has decreed to be the 
essentials of the Christian faith, and do not profess to 
have the same authority as the Scriptures themselves. 
And whatever may be the ])ractical advantages of pre- 
senting to the Christian child a condensed summary of 
the theological propositions to which he is called on to 
declare his assent, this usage cannot be said to derive any 
sanction either from the precepts or the practice of our 
Lord and His apostles. 

But in religious teaching, as in all other teaching, the 
value of formal statements of truth depends entirely on 
the degree in which tliey are understood and mentally 
assimilated. The learning by heart of such formal state- 
ments, so far from being a help, is often a mere substitute 
for thinking, and to that extent a hindrance to the actual 
acceptance and assimilation of the doctrine involved. 
And whatever care may have been taken to express a 
truth in the tersest and most appropriate language, that 
language itself requires to be paraphrased and restated 
in the scholar's own language, if it is to be of any real 
educational value. And herein, as in all else we teach, we 
have to beware of verbalism, and to abstain from identi- 
fying the substance of our lessons with any particular 
phraseology however choice. In this way we follow the 



J4 Methods of Instruction as illustrated in the Bible 



example of the Hebrew writers who habitually turned 
the subject round, so to speak, looked at it in several 
lights, surveyed both facets of the diamond, and thus 
were enabled to add to the beauty and attractiveness, 
and also to the moral effectiveness of their teaching. 

Whence then cometh wisdom? 

And where is the place of understanding? 

It cannot be gotten for gold, 

Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. 

God understandeth the way thereof, 

And he knoweth the place thereof. 

And unto man he saith, 

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; 

And to depart from evil is understanding.^ 

Proverbs. A less effective, but still very prominent instrument 

of teaching in the Old Testament, is the Proverb. 
Solomon is generally credited with the authorship of 
the book, in which his large experience of mankind, and 
some shrewd worldly wisdom, are concentrated into brief 
telling sentences generally antithetical in form, and dupli- 
cated after the manner of the Hebrew poetry : 

(i) A wi<-e son maketh a glad father, 

But a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother, 
(ii) The full soul loatheth a honeycomb, 

But to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet, 
(iii) The wicked flee when no man pursueth, 

But the righteous are bold as a lion, 
(iv) The full soul loatheth an honeycomb, but to the hungry soul 
every bitter thing is sweet. 

There is something very striking in the aphoristic 
form in which truths and maxims of conduct are here 
presented, and in all nations proverbs are often quoted 
and have a recognized value. Why is it however that 
they are so little effective as means of instruction ? The 

1 Job xxviii. 



Proverbs 25 

reason probably lies in the fact that there is often in 
them more of wit than of wisdom, and more of alliteration 
and of point than of sterling worth. There is apt to be 
an air of paradox and unreality about them. Truth, as 
we have said, is many-sided. Present it how you will, 
it has its nuances, its quahfications, its exceptions. You 
cannot condense it into formiilce. The epigrammatic 
form often hides a fallacy. The proverb enunciates itself 
boldly, without compromise or misgiving. It probably 
founds itself on a more or less restricted area of ex- 
perience, yet it asserts itself as if it were a statement 
of a permanent and universal law. Moreover, if you 
study collections such as George Herbert's Jacula Pru- 
dentiim, and the abundant store of Oriental and of 
Spanish, of Arabic, of French, and of Italian proverbs, 
you will often find that different proverbs, both ap- 
parently true, and indeed containing half-truths, are 
mutually destructive and contradictory : 

(i) Answer not a fool according to his folly, 

Lest thou also be like unlo him. 
(ii) Answer a fool according to his folly, 

Lest he be wise in his own conceit. 

On this point Mr John Morley has truly said : 

" The worst of maxims, aphorisms and the like is that from the 
sayings of Solomon and the son of Sirach downwards, that for 
every occasion of life or perplexity, there is a brace of them, the 
one pointing one way and another the exact opposite. The finger- 
post of experience has many arms at every cross-way. One 
observer tells the disciple that in politics perseverance always wins, 
another that men who take the greatest trouble to succeed are those 
who are most sure to miss. To-day the one essential appears to be 
boldness of conception — Totijoiirs Vandace. To-morrow the man of 
detail is master of the hour. To-day the turn of things inclines a 
man to say that in politics nothing matters; to morrow some other 
turn teaches him that in politics everything matters." ^ 

^ Article on Guicciardini, Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1897. 



26 Methods of Instruction as illustrated in the Bible 

Proverbs Moreover, the proverb is much more interesting and 

better intelHgible to older people than to children. It is a 

suited to ^ ^ ^ 

older than generalization often founded on an extensive observation 

to younger Q^ the world, or a knowledge of good and evil, and it 
learners. ° . ri-ri i 

presupposes a much larger experience oi lite than boys 

and girls have had opportunities of obtaining. To the 
young scholar, whatever principles of duty are presented 
should come in a concrete form and should be connected 
with the persons and the incidents of his own neces- 
sarily restricted life. Aphorisms, abstract truths, large 
general maxims affecting mankind as a whole have little 
meaning for him. He has for the present no more 
interest in mankind as a whole, or in the human race 
considered collectively, than he has in ethical and political 
truths set out in the form of universal propositions. He 
may perhaps arrive at these as Hfe advances, but it is 
beginning at the wrong end to force them upon his atten- 
tion in youth. It is observable that very little of our 
Lord's own teaching took the form of proverbs, or of 
phrases which were to abide in the memory. He relied 
much more on stories and concrete illustrations of moral 
duty and religious truth than on bare and abstract 
generalizations about either. And we are fain to con- 
clude that of all the manifold devices by which instruction 
is imparted by the writers of the Bible, the proverb is one 
of the least important, and is certainly least likely to 
prove helpful to the teacher of the young. 
Biography. I have elsewhere ^ commented more fully on the use 
made by the sacred writers of biography as ancillary to 
the study of history. In fact the historical portions of the 
Old and New Testamer.ts consist rather of a series of 
biographies than of a connected chronological narrative 
of events. What you and I know of the pastoral life of 
^ In Lectures on Teaching, Chapter xui. 



Biography 27 

the patriarchal times, we have learned in connexion with 
the story of Abraham and his children. If we have 
before our minds a vivid picture of Ancient Egypt, its 
polity, its social and industrial condition, it is not because 
we have read a treatise on these subjects, but because they 
are all illustrated incidentally in the story of Joseph and 
his brethren. So the subsequent events in the Jewish an- 
nals are known to us in connexion with the lives of Moses, 
of Samuel, of David, of Hezekiah, and of Judas Maccabaeus. 
Held in solution, so to speak, in the biographies of these 
men are not only facts about the national history, but 
illustrations of human character and duty, and the princi- 
ples of the Divine government. These illustrations are 
all the more impressive when thus presented in the 
concrete, as part of the story of lives in which we are 
interested, and in which are to be seen records of failures 
and successes, of great faults and great virtues, " the 
glory and the littleness of man." If we look into our own 
experience we shall be reminded that we did not first of 
all feel an interest in historical events and afterwards 
enquire who the people were who had a hand in them. 
What happened was this — we were first attracted to some 
great person's character or deeds of heroism, and having 
once felt interested in him, we began to care about the 
events in which he took part. The practice now adopted 
in the public elementary schools of England corresponds 
to this experience. Children in the lower classes are not 
asked to read connective narratives of events beginning 
and proceeding by regular sequence from the Ancient 
Britons to the age of Victoria. But their earliest lessons 
in history are anecdotal and biographical, and are asso- 
ciated with the most dramatic incidents in the annals of 
England, and the personal characteristics and adventures 
of the leading actors. Herein the course of instruction 



28 MetJiods of Instruction as illustrated in the Bible 



The 

National 
Port]- a it 
Gallery. 



Examples 
of great- 
ness. 



prescribed by authority in our primary schools, and 
adopted so largely by good teachers elsewhere, follows the 
precedent set by the Bible historians ; for it presents to 
the learner a series of biographical sketches as the chief 
links in the chain of historical testimony, connected with 
the more conspicuous national events ; and it assumes 
that future and more systematic knowledge will, as it is 
acquired, fit itself readily into the intervening spaces. 

A noble addition has recently been made to the 
educational resources of London in the form of the 
National Portrait Gallery, in which are arranged in 
chronological order the portraits of all the most famous 
sovereigns, statesmen, divines, writers, and military and 
naval commanders of the last four centuries. As a 
means of fixing and strengthening the impressions de- 
rived from history, this gallery, though its possibilities of 
usefulness are at present insufficiently appreciated, has 
already proved of great value to many London teachers. 
A class, for example, which has lately been engaged in 
the study of the Stuart period, is taken to the three 
Seventeenth Century rooms, and invited to look at the 
pictures of all the famous men and women of the time, 
to notice their dress, the insignia of their various offices, 
and so to recall the parts they have respectively played 
in the drama of our national history. Thus the personal 
interest in the actors is awakened or revived, further 
enquiry is stimulated, and impressions conveyed in class 
leading, or in oral lessons become more vivid and 
permanent. 

There is a remarkable chapter in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, in which the writer unfolds to his countrymen 
what is in fact a National Portrait Gallery, as he enume- 
rates, one by one, the heroes and saints of the Jewi h 
history, and adds to his catalogue these inspiring words : 



Narrative pozver 29 

And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell 
of those * * * who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out 
of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to 
flight the armies of the aliens.^ 

And finally he draws this conclusion from his long 
retrospect : 

Wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a 
cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which 
doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is 
set before us.^ 

How much of the philosophy of history is condensed 
into that single sentence ! It is suggestive to us of the 
ethical purpose which should dominate all our historical 
teaching. To what end do we live in a country whose 
annals are enriched by the story of great talents, high 
endeavours and noble sacrifices, if we do not become 
more conscious of the possibiHties of our own life, and 
more anxious to live worthily of the inheritance which 
has come down to us ? 

We are thus reminded of one remarkable character- Narrative 
istic of the sacred historians — their gift of the art of poiuer.^- 
simple and artistic narrative. Read the story of Jacob 
and his fraudulent acquisition of his^^ father's blessing 
(Genesis xxxix.), of Samson (Judges xvi.), of Samuel 
(i Samuel ii. and iii.), of the calling of David (i Samuel 
xvi.), of the death of Absalom (2 Samuel xviii.), of the 
Queen of Sheba (i Kings x.), of Elijah's sacrifice (i Kings 
xviii.), of the building of the Temple (i Chronicles xxviii. 
and xxix.), of Solomon's choice (2 Chronicles i.), of Daniel 
and Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel ii. — vi.) ; and in the New 
Testament the narrative of the Passion and the Crucifixion 
(Matthew xxvi., xxvii.), of the first Whitsuntide (Acts ii. 
1 Hebrews xi. 32 — 34. 2 Hebrews xii. i. 



30 Methods of Instruction as illustrated in the Bible 

and iii.), of St Paul's defence before Agrippa (Acts xxv., 
xxvi.), and his voyage and shipwreck (Acts xxvii.) ; 
and then consider critically in each case what the writer 
was simply as a raconteur, and how the story is to be 
regarded simply as a work of art. I think you will be 
struck with the skill, the reticence, and the clearness 
by which the narratives are distinguished. All the little 
incidental facts are kept in their due perspective, and 
yet contribute to the effectiveness of the main story. 
The narrator keeps the chief purpose full in view, steers 
clear of all moralizing or rhetoric, which might impair 
the unity and force of the impression he wishes to 
convey, and yet he does- not disdain to adorn the 
narrative with picturesque detail. To all teachers this 
same power of telling a good story is a very useful gift, 
and the occasions for its exercise are very numerous. 
It is a power which seems to come naturally and without 
effort to some people who are gifted with a vivid imagina- 
tion and with the dramatic instinct ; but it may be acquired 
or at least greatly improved by any one who begins by 
thinking the power worth acquiring, and who will study 
the best models and try to imitate them. 

Note, too, that in story-telling there are other differ- 
ences. Mere sequence of facts in right order does not 
make a good narrative. Unless there is a guiding motif, 
some purpose in view, some warmth, colour, feeling, the 
narrative is very ineffective. There were once two men 
conversing sadly as they walked along from Jerusalem 
to a village called Emmaus, when a Stranger drew near 
and talked to them. He heard their story, sympathized 
with their bewilderment, and, beginning at Moses and 
the prophets, interpreted to them many things in history 
and in the Scriptures which they had never perceived 
before. At the end of the interview, when their 



Parables 3 1 

companion had left them, they said one to another, " Did 
not our heart burn within us " while He spoke. The 
discourse had been narrative and expository only, not, 
we may suppose, making any appeal to emotion, yet it 
made the hearts of the hearers burn. You cannot ac- 
count for the use of this expression without recognizing 
that there had been a story indeed, but something more 
than a story — inspiration, and such a presentation of 
truth as called out responsive sympathy, and appealed 
to the conscience as much as it informed the imder- 
standing. And in like manner our owai narrative and 
historical lessons may become very dry and barren if 
there does not lie behind them some enthusiasm for 
what is right and noble, and some scorn for what is 
base, and some sense that there is a moral and spiritual 
significance in the facts of human life. '' While I was 
musing," said David, ''the fire kindled, and at last 
I spake with my tongue." Mere utterance of words, 
even the best w^ords, comes to little unless there has 
been not only the previous musing and study, but also 
a genuine warmth and strong interest in relation to the 
subject taught. 

Of all the methods employed by the sacred w^xxi^x^s^ Parables. 
for elucidating and enforcing truth, one of the most 
characteristic is the parable or apologue. Jotham's fable 
about the trees, Nathan's story addressed to David about 
the rich man and the ewe lamb, are examples of this 
parabolic teaching in the Old Testament. And such 
teaching was the sole distinctive feature of our Lord's 
discourses, "Without a parable spake He not unto 
them." The reasons assigned by the Evangelists for 
this practice may not be perfectly intelligible or very 
obviously consistent with one another. But the impress- 
iveness of the method has been recognized perhaps in 



32 Methods of Instruction as illustrated in the Bible 

the highest degree by Oriental races, but also in large 
measure among the less imaginative Teutonic and Latin 
communities. To this hour Christian children are more 
attracted by the parables than by any other portion of 
the Evangelical record ; and Christian teachers in select- 
ing for the young such portions of Scripture as do not 
involve theological controversy or difficulties of belief 
find the stories which form so large a portion of the 
Gospels best suited for their purpose. They deal with 
subjects of universal human interest. Some of them, 
such as the Parable of the Sower, are striking represen- 
tations of the facts of spiritual experience. Others, 
such as the Prodigal Son and the Good Shepherd, are 
picturesque illustrations of the Divine character and of 
the relation of the Heavenly Father to His erring children. 
Others, such as the Good Samaritan, enforce powerfully 
our dependence on one another for succour in trouble. 
Every such parable carries hidden in it some ethical or 
religious significance, but its significance is not set forth 
in formal language. The preacher does not appear to 
obtrude His moral : the hearer is left to make the appli- 
cation for himself. Herein lies the special force of the 
allegorical method of teaching. The learner is attracted 
by the story, and regards it at first as a story only. Soon 
he begins to perceive its underlying meaning. He 
changes the attitude of his mind, transfers the interpre- 
tation from the material to the moral and spiritual world, 
and to the inner sphere of his own experience, and then 
draws the conclusion which, though unexpressed, was 
intended by the teacher. David listened to the apologue 
of Nathan till *' his anger was greatly kindled against the 
man," and he listened to all the more purpose because 
he did not perceive throughout that the story related to 
himself. De te fahula nan-atur, " Thou art the man," 



TJie use of allegory in teaching 33 

came as a revelation to him, all the more impressive 
because it was unexpected, and because he had reached 
by his own efforts a right moral judgment. In a parable 
the learner finds his own way to a conclusion, and for 
this reason the conclusion when arrived at is found to 
be impressive. He has been invited to take a prin- 
cipal share in tliinking out the question, and so he 
feels when the inference is arrived at that it is his own. 
When a critical hearer put to the Master the question 
"Who is my neighbour?" the answer was not the direct 
categorical definition he probably expected, but it took 
the form of a story about a man on a journey who 
fell among thieves. And at the end of the story the 
questioner was himself confronted with the enquiry, 
" Which now of these three tliinkest thou was neighbour 
unto him who fell among thieves?" The apologue had 
helped the enquirer to discover his own answer to a 
difficult question in practical ethics. Such an answer 
was much more likely to be remembered than if it had 
been given in a direct and didactic form. 

And to the end of time teachers will find that fables TJie use of 
and allegories form an attractive and useful part of their ^^ ^S'^^')'^ 
educational apparatus: (i) because the truth that \'s>ing. 
hidden in them is not visible at first sight, but has to 
be discovered by the indirect method of analogy ; and 
(2) because when we thus discover the meaning of a 
parable we cease to be mere disciples or recipients, and 
become our own teachers. And he who becomes his 
own teacher has a very interesting and docile pupil, and 
his lessons have a better chance than others of be- 
coming effective. There are of course necessary limits to 
the application of any analogies between the phenomena 
of the visil)le and those of the spiritual world. We must 
not 'force into allegories meanings which they will not 

D 



34 Methods of Instruction as illnstrated in the Bible 

reasonably bear, nor use unreal stories evidently manu- 
factured for a didactic purpose. This form of instruc- 
tion must be used sparingly, and only when the story 
is striking and self-consistent ; with its moral honestly 
interwoven in its fabric and not a pU7-pureus panmis 
tacked on for ornament. Subject only to these pre- 
cautions, we may well look out in our own general 
reading for good stories or apologues, and have them 
ready for use when the suitable occasion offers, and we 
shall find that the method of instruction adopted by the 
greatest of all teachers nineteen centuries ago has not 
lost its force, but may still be employed with excellent 
effect in English schools and nurseries. 
Parables Closely akin to narrative parables are the references 

^/^''^^^'''^- which abound in the Bible to the facts and phenomena 
of Nature as means of enforcing moral and religious 
truth. Our Lord constantly availed Himself of the 
familiar incidents of daily life — the blowing of the 
wind, the farm yard, the birds' nests, the fishing-vessel. 
" Consider the lillies of the field, how they grow." " Be- 
hold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do 
they reap nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly 
Father feedeth them." There are beauty and point here, 
but there is reticence too. The analogy is not forced, 
and is not made to sustain more meaning than it can 
properly bear. As an illustration of the brooding tender- 
ness of the Saviour over His wayward people, the image 
of the mother-bird protecting her young is felt by all 
of us to be simple, affecting and appropriate. As a 
means of confirming belief in the providential care of 
God over His creatures the references to flowers and 
trees and to the lower animals, which without forethought 
are preserved in health and beauty by a care not their 
own, find their way to the teachable heart and consci^ence 



Less oils from Natttre 35 

with great effect. And within the limits which our Lord 
Himself observed, in using these simple and touching 
similitudes, good teachers may wisely use Nature's lessons 
as auxiliary to their own. But there is a temptation 
among some teachers to overstep the true boundary of 
analogy and illustration, and to deduce lessons from the 
facts and aspects of Nature wdiich the premisses will not 
justify. I hear teachers sometimes who are so bent on 
' pointing a moral ' that they seem to think it necessary, 
in every lesson on a plant or animal, to wind up with 
some moral reflection. Solomon has in part set them 
the example, " Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her 
ways and be wise, which having no guide, overseer or 
ruler, provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth 
her food in the harvest." Isaiah too rebukes the ^' sinful 
nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers," 
by reference to the behaviour of the lower animals. 
"The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's 
crib, but Israel doth not know ; my people doth not 
consider." In like manner, it has not been uncommon 
for writers of books for the young to refer to the habits 
of animals as if they furnished precepts and examples 
for the conduct of human beings. Here, for example, is False and 
an extract from a poem much admired in the eiditeenth -^^'''"^^f^' 

century : ing from 

"The daily labours of the bee Nature. 

Awake my soul to industry; 
Who can observe the careful ant 
And not provide for future want? 
In constancy and nuptial love 
I learn my duty from the dove. 
The hen that from the chilly air 
With pious wing protects her care 
And every fowl that flies at large 
Instructs me in a parent's charge. 



36 MetJiods of Instruction as illust^'ated in the Bible 

Thus every object of creation 
Can furnish hints to contemplation, 
And from the most minute and mean 
A virtuous mind can morals glean." ^ 

And we are all familiar with Dr Watts's instructive little 

homilies : e.g. 

" How doth the little busy bee 
Improve each shining hour ! 

Tjf TF 7p -^ ?(£■ 

So, like the sun, would I fulfil 
The business of the day." 

Cowper, moralizing on human vanity, is to the same 
effect : 

"The self-applauding bird, the peacock, see; 
Mark what a sumptuous Pharisee is he." 

No doubt there is something attractive in these references 
to Nature ; but there is after all little or no basis for the 
inferences which are often drawn from them. A child 
of ordinary intelligence and healthy conscience rebels 
against such teaching. He does not put his objection 
into words, that would be rude and disrespectful to you. 
But he knows that the premiss will not sustain the con- 
clusion. The industry of the bee, the forecast of the 
ant, the skill of the spider or the silkworm, the air with 
which birds wear rich plumage, he knows to be the 
results of inherited animal instinct, which has no moral 
significance at all, and which forms no guide for respon- 
sible human beings, who are endowed with power to 
control their own actions. That the lark rises early in 
the morning is no reason why we should do the same. 
That the bee buzzes about all the summer day among 
the flowers is a pleasing fact in Natural history, but it 
has no bearing whatever on the industry of your life or 
^ Gay, Introduction to Fables. 



Strained and iJiisleadijig analogies 37 

mine. Let us beware of confusing the moral perceptions 
of children by assuming a connexion here which does 
not really exist. We must not mistake illustration for 
proof. Whatever happens, let us at least be honest with 
the little ones, and not offer to them arguments which 
we should reject as invalid, or analogies which we should 
know to be fallacious, if they were addressed to our- 
selves. By way of picturesque and occasional references 
these allusions may have a certain petty appositeness, 
but if it is seriously proposed to employ them for the 
enforcement of doctrine or precept, we may easily defeat 
our own purpose. A formidable Nemesis awaits the 
teacher or the parent who fails to bear this in mind, 
for the day soon comes when the young scholar detects 
that there was a moral falsetto in such teaching, and 
his confidence in the good sense and honesty of his 
teacher is permanently weakened. 

It is especially instructive to observe the method^ of 77^^ <r<?- 
our Lord's teaching when enquirers came to Him \v\\.\iy.^^^j^^. 
difficulties, and with ethical problems to be solved, and taught 
Men approached Him, expecting to be referred to some J'^ ^^'^^''^"- 
definite rule or formula, but were disappointed to find problems. 
themselves referred instead to some larger principle of 
action, which they were first to see in all its breadth and 
then to apply for themselves to the particular case in hand. 
"Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?" To this 
appeal the answer came in the form of a counter ques- 
tion, " What man shall there be of you that shall have 
one sheep, and if this fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, 
will he not lay hold on it and hft it out?"^ In other 
words, try to see clearly the great law of humanity and 
duty, and then look at this case in the light of that 
law. Simon the Pharisee had some misgivings about 
^ Matthew xii. 11, 



38 Methods of histruction as illustrated in the Bible 

recognizing a certain sinful woman, and the Master 
rejoined, "Simon, I have somewhat to say to thee," and 
He then tells a story about a creditor and two debtors, 
and appeals to his host to say which of the two, after 
they have been generously forgiven, will love the creditor 
most. Afterwards comes the response, "Thou hast rightly 
judged,"^ and this is followed up by a clear exposition, 
not only of the particular course which ought to be 
taken in this case, but also of the great law of Christian 
charity and tolerance which ought to dominate all such 
cases. 

In these and many other of our Lord's recorded 
conversations, it will be observed that He often asked 
for the co-operation of the learner, and gave him some 
of the thinking to do for himself. His answer was 
seldom oracular or conclusive. He did not wish to save 
the disciple from the responsibility of working out the 
required conclusion for himself. His attitude was that of 
one who takes the disciple into his confidence and says 
in effect : — The question is hard, perhaps harder than 
it looks. Come and let us examine it together. " How 
think you?" At another time the question is asked, 
"Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?" 
Instead of giving a direct categorical answer He calls 
a litde child unto Him and sets him in the midst,- 
and then leads up to the truth that he wlio seems to 
be the greatest is often the least, and that the humblest 
is nearest to the kingdom of Heaven. " Who do men 
say that I am?" There are many rumours current, 
but they matter litde. "Who do j'^ say that I am?" 
Then look at the sequel of that pathetic acted parable 
recorded among the latest incidents in His life, and 
you will observe that after girding Himself and washing 

1 Luke vii. 41. ^ Matthew xviii. I. 



Co-operation of teacher and learner 39 

the feet of His disciples, He turns to them with the 
personal appeal, " Know ye what I have done unto 
you ? " ^ Here and often He refused to be didactic, 
and became conversational and interrogative, challenging 
the hearer's attention and sympathy at every step and 
making him take a substantial share in the evolution 
of the lesson and in the attainment of the result. And 
thus we have the special sanction of the Master for the 
main principle of all true pedagogy, — a principle con- 
stantly enforced, but still daily overlooked in practice, — 
that the measure of a teacher's success lies not merely in 
the amount of useful exhortation and truth which he can 
pour into the recipient mind, but in the amount of effort 
he has called forth and in the degree in which the 
learner is made master of the process whereby, when his 
teachers are withdrawn, he may be able to discover truth 
for himself. 

One other striking characteristic of the Gospel teach- Hozu many 
ing deserves special notice. It was our Lord's habit, ^"'^"'^"^^^^^'^ 
when an enquirer came before Him, to begin by asking 
him some question with a view to find out what he 
already knew. " What shall I do to inherit eternal 
life?" asked one. "What is written in the Law? How 
readest thou? " was the response. The method of teach- 
ing is here seen to correspond closely to that adopted in 
His beneficent miracles in regard to the supply of man's 
physical wants. Take for example the story of the feed- 
ing the four thousand. How vividly the scene comes 
before us ! The hungry multitude, the desert place, the 
compassionate Teacher who would not have the people 
depart at once lest they faint by the way, and who pur- 
poses to work a miracle in their behalf. But His first 
question is, " How many loaves have ye?" What have 

1 John xiii. 14. 



ve 



? 



40 Methods of histructiofi as illustrate din the Bible 

you got already? Let us use that provision and make 
the most of it, and I will then cause the store to be 
increased.^ This is the method of the Divine economy 
in spiritual and intellectual as in material things. Before 
adding to our present resources, our Lord asks what they 
amount to and what use we are making of them. He 
would not work a miracle to provide that which might 
have been provided by the exercise of ordinary human 
forethought. And I have often been reminded of this 
simple and significant episode in the Gospel history when 
it has been my duty to listen to lessons given by teachers 
in their classes. Some of these lessons begin by pre- 
supposing the possession of knowledge which the scholars 
have never acquired, and so they merely bewilder them, 
and completely fail to fulfil their purpose. And others 
begin by elaborately teUing the class what is already 
known, and these fail in their purpose, too, and may 
easily alienate and dishearten the learners. What is 
here needed is the transference to the school-room of 
the simple enquiry addressed to the disciples in the 
desert: ''How many loaves have ye?" A few minutes 
may be fitly spent at the beginning of every lesson, in 
the preliminary questions which will serve to shew the 
teacher in what state the learner's mind already is, 
what previous knowledge is actually possessed and re- 
membered, and how the new knowledge intended to be 
taught can best be linked on to the old. As, in all 
charitable work, we do not know how to help a man, 
we certainly cannot help him wisely, until we know 
him, and have found out what he has got already ; 
so every teacher before he begins to teach is bound to 
discover and to measure carefully the substratum on 

1 Mark vi. 38. 



Vision and vieditation 41 

which he has to build. The neglect of this simple pre- 
caution often leads in teaching to enormous waste of 
time. 

Even the most cursory student of the Bible cannot Vision 
fail to notice how large a portion of the teaching described 'f'J^. ^^^^ ^' 
in it takes the form of visions and revelations. The 
ladder was seen by Jacob in the wilderness, with the 
angels of God ascending and descending on it/ and on 
waking he exclaimed, " Surely the Lord was in this place 
and I knew it not," and afterwards went on his pilgrimage 
with firmer resolution and surer hope. Samuel and 
Solomon, too, were among those who '^ in clear dream 
and solemn vision " heard things '' that no gross ear can 
hear," and received impressions which changed the course 
of their whole lives and made them conscious of a Divine 
call and a new consecration. Other instances are to be 
found in the visions of Ezekiel, the weird utterances 
which came to Eliphaz in the time " when deep sleep 
falleth on men,"- the great sheet let down from heaven 
before the startled eye of Peter,^ in whose experience 
it was needful that he should henceforth learn to regard 
nothing as "common or unclean " ; the unclosing of the 
spiritual eye which was granted to Paul, " whether in 
the body or out of the body"^ he could not tell; and 
the ecstatic vision which was revealed to the aged seer 
of Patmos when he beheld a '^ city that had no need of 
the sun or of the moon to lighten it, because the glory 
of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."'' 
Revelations in these forms do not come to you or to me, 
but we have all had some experiences which are closely 
akin to them. There have been moments in our lives, 
and in those of our pupils, when we seem to be lifted up. 

1 Genesis xxviii. 12. 2 job iv. 13. ^ Acts x. ii. 

* 2 Corinthians xii. 2. ^ Revelation xxi. 2t^. 



42 ]\IctJiods of Instvjiction as illustrated in the Bible 

on to a higher plane of thought and emotion than is 
habitual to us ; when great things seem greater, and 
little things smaller, beauty more beautiful, and evil 
more hateful than ever, when we feel ourselves capable 
of something better than we are doing every day, and 
when the whole atmosphere in which we live becomes 
suffused with a new sense of the nobler possibilities of life. 
Such moments are rare, but they come to all of us some- 
times. They may be brought about by reading a very 
powerful or inspiring book, by some scene of extraordinary 
loveliness, by some domestic or public event which stirs 
our sympathies profoundly, or perhaps by that strong and 
indefinable emotion which is produced by the presence 
of large numbers, all animated by one spirit and con- 
trolled by the same overmastering impulse. Whatever 
be the cause we know well that times of refreshing like 
these are among the best in our lives. We would fain 
prolong them. We feel as the three disciples did, when 
for a moment they were favoured with a glimpse of 
Moses and Elias and of the upper world. "■ Methinks it 
is good to be here." We cannot stay, however, but must 
presently descend into the arena of daily duty, perhaps to 
the valley of humiliation. 

*' Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight 
Heavy as frost and deep almost as life." 

The Story of the Transfiguration is a parable revealing 
the significance of those moments of exaltation which 
come to most of us at some times in our lives. The brief 
and transient experience gives us the true measure by which 
ever after we may judge our powers and our motives. 
It shews us what our best self is capable of becoming. 
It leaves in us memories by which all the rest of our life 
may be brightened and ennobled. Ever after when we 



Dreamy and imaginative scholars 43 

are tempted to be content with a low standard of duty, 
to waste opportunities, and to let our faculties be ' soiled 
by ignoble use,' those memories come back to rebuke us 
and to recall us to the right way. Thus strong emotions, 
and even the vague sense of undeveloped power, may 
play an important part in the education of a life. 

Is it not true that children who seem to us a little Dreamy 
odd and eccentric, and who indulge in reveries and ^"'.^ ^^'/." 

' ° aginative 

fancies, are often among the best scholars we \\3,vq'> scholars 

There was once a family of twelve brothers, of whom ^^^.^ ^^ ^^^ 

■' discour- 

eleven were rather hard and prosaic, and perhaps ^t^^^/. 
common-place men, who, when the young brother 
came among them, were wont to greet him with the 
mocking salutation, " Behold, this dreamer cometh." 
The boy had indulged in visions which they could not 
understand ; had, in tending sheep in the solitary hills, 
nurtured great vague ambitions which differed essentially 
from theirs. Yet this dreamer was he who became the 
chief of his family, a ruler of men, the saviour of his 
father and his brethren. It is ever thus. The deeper 
insight, the inspiring hopes, the ' thoughts that wander 
through eternity,' when they are granted to us, are great 
and divine gifts. In the rare cases in which we see 
evidences of them manifested in childhood let us wel- 
come them as among the best omens, and not discourage 
the dreamer because his mental activity takes unexpected 
forms, and because he seems less amenable to ordinary 
routine discipline than his fellows. 

Here then is a hint for us, of the value of genuine 
appeal to the feelings in dealing with children. All great 
emotion, provided only that it be unselfish, does some- 
thing to purify and ennoble character. Incidents occur 
in a child's life which help to kindle such emotion — the 
thrill of a solemn music, the first gHmpse of the sea, 



44 Methods of histruction as illnstratcdiii the Bible 

thanksgiving at a jubilee or for some great national 
blessing, the sympathy evoked on the occasion of some 
great social misfortune or pubhc loss. A good teacher 
is ever on the watch for incidents of this kind in the 
public life of the nation, or in local events, or in the 
history of the school itself, such as may serve to rouse 
the apathetic to enthusiasm, or make one who generally 
cares for material pleasures only, forget himself for a 
time at least. The teacher who looks into his own life 
knows well that he has become what he is, not only in 
virtue of what he knows and can do, but of what he has 
felt, and of what he has striven for and imagined in his 
best moments. In the teacher's profession it is truer 
than perhaps in any other that the sum of human duty 
is to aim high and to work hard. Without hard work all 
great aims are apt to become futile and to evaporate in 
mere sentiment. But without a high aim, and a noble 
ideal of what is possible both in ourselves and in our 
pupils, mere hard work is the purest drudgery, and will 
inevitably degenerate ere long into a barren and joyless 
routine. 
Conclii- Thus we have had before us some of the more prom- 

inent methods by which truth has been enforced and char- 
acter shaped by the Bible writers. They are (i) symbol 
and ritual, (2) direct injunction, (3) appeals to the intui- 
tions of conscience, (4) iteration and reiteration, (5) prov- 
erbs, (6) biography and example, (7) story, figure and 
parable, (8) poetry, (9) searching questions, and lastly 
(10) vision and inspiration. These methods are not all 
equally applicable at all times, or to all learners, or to the 
same people at every stage in their mental and spiritual 
development. But all of them have been employed by 
our Divine teacher from time to time in the education of 
the race, and every one of them is suggestive to us 



sions. 



Practical conclusions 45 

of processes which we may in some degree imitate. 
We may at least infer from this review of the chief 
characteristics of Bible teaching that the ways of access 
to the human conscience and understanding are many 
and varied ; that they have not all been found out yet ; 
that new modes of adapting former methods to meet 
modern needs have yet to be discovered, and that it is 
the duty of every good teacher to take at least a share 
in making such discoveries for himself. 



LECTURE II 

SOCRATES AND HIS METHOD OF 
TEACHING 

State of Athens in the time of Socrates. The intellectual discipline 
of the Athenians. The art of Oratory. Socrates and his con- 
versations. His disciples and reporters. A Sccratic dialogue. 
Negative results not necessarily fruitless. Investigation of 
words and their meanings. Some methods more fitting for 
adults than for young learners. Ambiguity and verbal confu- 
sion. Gorgias. Relation of virtue to knowledge. The dai/xcju 
of Socrates. Oracles. Conversation an educational instru- 
ment. Need for occasional colloquies with ehler scholars. 
Subjects suited for such colloquies. Handicraft. Physical 
Science. The doctrine of reminiscence. Pre-natal existence. 
Socrates a preacher of righteousness. The accusation against 
him. His death. 

We may profitably devote our time to-day to the 
consideration of the Hfe and influence of the most illus- 
trious of the Greek teachers. Socrates' name is identified 
with some of the earliest dialectical exercises on record, 
and the arts of evolving and imparting truth and of 
establishing a right relation between learner and teacher 
were the arts to which he devoted his chief attention. 
These too are the arts which most of my hearers desire 
to acquire for themselves, and to communicate to others, 
and although our circumstances, after the lapse of cen- 
turies, differ much from those in which he lived, it will 
be found on examination that there is a substantial 

46 



Athens in the Socratie age 47 

resemblance between the problems with which he was 
confronted and some of those which we in this age are 
trying to solve. 

At the risk of recounting some things which are State of 
already very familiar to most of my audience, it may .^^^.'" ^'^ , 
not be unfitting to remind you of one or two facts Socrates. 
respecting the condition of Athens in the fourth and 
fifth centuries before Christ. The state, of which it 
formed the capital, was little larger than a moderate 
English county, and the whole of its subject territories 
were not equal in area to Great Britain. In the time 
of Pericles, however, it was the most influential city in 
the world. Its outward aspect was, as you know, very 
remarkable. The houses of the private citizens were, 
for the most part, plain wooden tenements, in striking 
contrast to all the buildings associated with the public 
life of the state ; for these were costly and magnificent. 
Near was a fair harbour, teeming with commercial life ; 
and down the slope, leading to the Piraeus, were two 
sturdy parallel walls, which secured access to the sea in 
time of war, and which, as they betokened the prudence 
of the citizens, had also borne witness to their prowess 
in many a conflict. And towering high above the city, 
overlooking the common paths and homes of men, 
stood the sacred citadel, the dwelling of the gods. 
There was the Parthenon, dedicated to the virgin god- 
dess Athene, whose name the city bore ; and near it 
were the temples of Jupiter Olympus, of Theseus, and 
Apollo — buildings splendid even in ruins, but then all 
fresh and perfect, overlaid with gilding and bright colour. 
Yet, 2,300 years ago, the stranger who had sailed from 
Tyre or from Syracuse, to see the city, would not have, 
gathered from all these outward signs of prosperity a 
true conception of the power of Athens, or have under- 



48 Socrates and his method of teaching 

stood why she dominated the world. The greatness 
of Athens lay in the character of her people, in her 
freedom, and in the way in which she maintained it, 
in her mental activity, and in that desire for new 
knowledge which, long afterwards, so impressed St Paul 
when he addressed the people from Mars' Hill. You 
remember how much struck the Apostle was as he 
walked through the city or stood on the Acropolis, and 
saw around him so many signs of restlessness and of 
intellectual activity and enterprise. The people, St Luke 
tells us, " spent their time in nothing else but either to 
tell or to hear some new thing." ^ That did not mean 
news in our sense of the word, news from a far country, 
the story of a great discovery or new fact. It meant a 
new truth or speculation, some fresh or original opinion 
about government, about the duties of citizens, the rights 
of subject states, or the proper use of human faculties in 
the family and in the State. 

Athens had, at the time of Socrates, lately succeeded 
in baffling the counsels and dispersing the host of the 
King of Persia. With the little band of confederated 
Greek patriots, she had resisted an army twenty times 
the size of her own. The names of Plataea and Salamis 
were keenly remembered by the Greeks ; and the 
tactics of Marathon and Thermopylae were often can- 
vassed by them. Indeed, every matter of public con- 
cern was freely discussed. It is true the people had 
no press, either to furnish them with materials for 
forming their opinions, or to save them that trouble by 
presenting them with opinions already formulated. All 
discussion was oral ; not only in the legitimate popular 
assemblies, but in the market-place, in the forum, and 
under the porticoes of temples, groups of eager dis- 

^ Acts xvii. 21, 



TJie intellectual discipline of tJie Athenians 49 

putants might be seen anxiously investigating some 
difficult problem in morals or politics. Every act of 
the governing body, every detail of administration, 
every judicial decision, became, in turn, the subject of 
open public disputation. And the Athenians prided 
themselves on doing everything with their eyes open, 
and on being able to give a reason, not only for the 
acts of themselves and their party, but also for all the 
public policy of their beloved State. A man who had 
not an opinion on these matters, or who could not defend 
it, was considered to be a discredit to the community. 
" We are the only people," said Pericles, in one of his 
impassioned orations to the citizens at the funeral of 
some heroes who had died in a conflict, 

" We are the only people who regard him that does not meddle 
in State affairs as good for nothing. Yet, methinks, we pass sound 
judgments and are quick in catching the right apprehension of 
things, and we think that words are not prejudicial to action, but 
rather the not being prepared by previous debate before we proceed 
to action. Herein lies the true excellence of our people, that in the 
hour of action we can shew great courage, and yet we debate before- 
hand the expediency of our measures. The courage of other 
nations may be the result of ignorance or blind impulse; delibera- 
tion makes them cowards. But those, undoubtedly, must lie 
deemed to have the greatest souls who, being most acutely sensible 
of the miseries of war and the sweets of peace, are not hence in the 
least deterred from facing danger. * * This whole earth is the 
grave of illustrious men; but, of all those who are buried in it, there 
are none nobler than those whom we commit to the ground to day, 
for they are the intelligent citizens of a free State." 

The sort of mental discipline through which an I'he iniel- 

Athenian citizen passed, differed very much from that ^5/"'' ' '-' 

. . . ii pi I lie 0/ 

with which we are familiar in the nineteenth centur\'. tke Aiken- 
He could not read or write, but he could listen to the '""^' 
harangues of the orator, or join a group of enquirers 
who surrounded a philosopher pacing the groves of 
E 



50 Socrates and Jus method of teaching 

Academus. He saw the plays of Sophocles and Aristo- 
phanes, of which representations were often gratuitously 
provided by rich citizens, as an honourable public duty, 
and as a contribution to national education. " He walked 
amidst the friezes of Phidias and the paintings of Zeuxis ; 
he heard the rhapsodist at the street corner declaiming 
about the heroism of Hector or the wanderings of the 
much-enduring Ulysses. He was a legislator, conversant 
with high questions of international right and of public 
revenue ; he was a soldier, carefully trained by the State 
under a severe but generous discipline ; he was a judge, 
compelled often to weigh hostile evidence, and to decide 
complex questions of right and wrong. These things 
were themselves an education, well fitted, if not to form 
exact or profound thinkers, at least to give quickness to 
the perceptions, delicacy to the taste, fluency to the ex- 
pression, and politeness to the manners." ^ An Athenian 
knew that his beloved city was dedicated to Athene, the 
goddess of Wisdom, and he wished to make the citizens 
worthy of this distinction. Hence, to many of the people, 
philosophy was a pastime, and the search after wisdom 
one of the main duties of life. And, as some men would 
go to a bath or a gymnasium to brace up their physical 
energies, others would resort to the rhetor or the sophist 
to gather strength for intellectual contests, and to practise 
in the porch or the agoj-a the *' noble art of self-defence." 
77ie art of And here it may not be unfitting to reflect for a 
oiaiory. jjjonient on the fact that 23 centuries have not, in this 
one respect, witnessed the improvement which we may 
hope has been visible in other departments of instruc- 
tion. Education in citizenship, training in the art of 
forming and expressing opinions on matters of high ' 
public interest, the discipline which helps a man to 

1 Macaulay, Essay on Boswell's Johnson. 



Socrates and his conversations 5 1 

explain, and, if needful, to maintain and defend the 
opinions he is supposed to hold — where is our pro- 
vision for attaining these objects? Where are the 
teachers, who, not content with making their pupils 
receivers of truth, help them also to elucidate it, and 
to enforce it upon others? I think that from Athens 
we have still, in this one respect, something to learn. 

It was in the midst of this busy, prosperous, and Socrates 
inquisitive community that you might have seen, had'^"'^/'"* 
you lived about 400 B.C., a short, thick-set, and some- tions. 
what ugly man, going about from one part of the city to 
another, entering into conversation with persons of all 
ranks, and apparently very anxious to extend the circle 
of his acquaintance. Yet he was no stranger to the 
people of Athens. They knew him well. He hac^ been 
brought up among them. His father had been a sculptor 
of no great repute or wealth, but of good and honourable 
lineage. He himself had served in early hfe as a soldier 
with some credit, and had subsequently filled several of 
those posts in which the Athenian constitution, hke our 
own, gave, even to undistinguished citizens, opportunities 
of rendering service to the State. He lived a blameless 
and somewhat uneventful life, and attracted little public 
notice until about the age of 40. But about this time 
he began to be remarked for the frequency and earnest- 
ness of the conversations which he held with the leading 
people of Athens, Wherever a public disputation was 
going on, wherever any rhetor was discoursing to a group 
of hearers, this rugged, meanly clad man would be seen 
attentively listening. In a modest and respectful way, 
he would venture to put a question to the orator on the 
subject of his harangue. An answer would generally be 
given off-hand. On this Socrates would found another 
question ; and, as he very carefully remembered the 



52 Socrates and his method of teaching 

several answers, fastened mercilessly on any inconsistency 
between one answer and another, and would permit no 
deviation from the matter in hand ; he would often embar- 
rass the speaker very much, and make it appear that he 
was talking about something which he did not under- 
stand. Throughout he assumed the rather provoking 
attitude of a mere enquirer, never that of one who had a 
theory of his own to propound. Close, searching inter- 
rogation was his chief employment, and if the result was 
unsatisfactory he seemed surprised and disappointed, as 
one who had expected information and guidance he 
could not obtain. For Socrates was possessed with the 
conviction that there is a great deal of unreal and pre- 
tentious knowledge in the world. He thought that, 
down at the root of even the most familiar subjects that 
men discuss, there lie difficulties which are scarcely 
suspected. He believed that men come to false conclu- 
sions, not because they reason badly or dishonestly, but 
because their premisses are wrong ; because, at the \'ery 
outset of their argument, they have assumed as true some 
data which they have never sufficiently examined. He 
thought that, before any one could attain a high standard 
of intellectual excellence, he had much to unlearn ; and 
that it was necessary for him to clear his mind, not 
merely of falsehood or error, but of beliefs which, though 
they might appear self-evident, were unsupported and 
unverified. We err, he said, by not taking the true 
measure of ourselves and of our own ignorance; and, 
until we have tried to do this, we are not in a condition 
to receive new knowledge in a right spirit, or to turn it to 
profitable account. He did not think that men wilfully 
deceived one another, but rather that unconsciously they 
deceived themselves. Hence, he regarded it as the first 
business of a philosopher to convey to the learner, by 



His disciples and reporters 53 

some process, however painful, a true estimate of the 

value and extent of his own knowledge. 

We are to remember that he wrote no book, and that His disci- 

all our knowledge of him is £?ained from the records ^ '/ "/" 
° ^ reporters. 

furnished by his affectionate disciples Plato and Xeno- 
l)hon. Herein we are reminded of the greatest of all 
teachers, who is known to us not by any writings of His 
own, but by His acts and discourses as they have been 
handed down to us by those who received His teaching. 
And the parallel is remarkable in other ways. Three of 
the Evangelists give to us plain matter-of-flict narratives 
of what they saw and heard. It is true we may trace in 
Matthew a desire to make the mission of his Lord intel- 
ligible and acceptable to the Jews, and in Luke, who 
wrote under the guidance of Paul, a wish to edify Gentile 
converts. But in the three synoptic Gospels there is 
straightforward narrative, biography, reports of conversa- 
tions and discourses, but little or no reflection or theory. 
In the fourth Gospel you have an utterance of another 
kind. The writer of St John's Gospel is essentially a 
Platonist. He sees the whole of the facts of the Saviour's 
life through the medium of the large spiritual truths 
which seem to him of paramount importance. He lays 
down, in the first words of his book, his theory of the 
inner relationship of the Father, the Word, and the 
human soul ; and throughout his narrative, particularly in 
the long discourses between the Great Teacher and His 
disciples, he accentuates this theory, and keeps steadily 
in view the ideal of spiritual union, of supernatural 
agency, and Divine influence. It is thus also with Plato. 
He is an idealist. He sees all truth of mere fact, in the 
light of what he conceives to be the larger truths of 
philosophy. He looks on human and social life as 
having its own ideal and purpose, no less than each 



54 Socrates and his niethod of teaching 

profession or craft. His views on the ultimate ground 
of all ethics in science or reasoned truth and on the 
doctrine of reminiscence are constantly illustrated in the 
Socratic dialogues, as he presents them. But to Xeno- 
phon, a soldier rather than a philosopher, a man of 
business and of robust common sense, the dialectic of 
Socrates was chiefly valuable because of the light it 
threw on the practical problems of life. He was con- 
cerned to hear it so often said of his revered master, 
that his teaching ended in mere doubt and negation. 
He desired to vindicate Socrates from such a charge, and 
to shew that, after all his searching questions, he ceased 
to embarrass his hearer, and gave him, by way of con- 
clusion, counsels of a practical and useful character. 
And all through the Platonic and Xenophontic repre- 
sentations, as between the narratives of Matthew and of 
John, and even in the tivo accounts of the Apology before 
the judges, you will find the same diversity, — the one 
dwelling rather on the negative and speculative side, 
the other on the practical and positive side of the 
master's teaching ; both representations being in a sense 
fundamentally true, but both coloured by the intellectual 
medium through which the disciple recognized the truth. 
A Socratic Here, for example, is a fragment from one of Xeno- 
i/ialogue. pi^Qj^'g dialogues, in which you will observe that the 
moral aim and purpose of the Socratic dialectic is kept 
prominently in view, and in which the reporter of the 
conversation is chiefly concerned to vindicate his master 
against the charge so often made against him of corrupt- 
ing the Athenian youth. It is an account of a conversa- 
tion with Glauco, the son of Aristo, who was so strongly 
possessed with the desire of governing the republic, that 

"Although not yet twenty he was continually making orations 
to the people; neither was it in the power of his relations, however 



A Socj'atic dialogue 55 

numerous, to prevent his exposing himself to ridicule. Socrates, 
who loved him on the account of Plato and Charmidas, had alone 
the art to succeed with him. For, meeting him, he said, ' Your 
design then, my Glauco, is to be at the very head of our republic?' 
' It is so,' replied the other. 

" ' Believe me,' said Socrates, ' a noble aim ! For, this once ac- 
complished, you become, as it were, absolute ; you may then serve 
your friends, aggrandize your family, extend the limits of your 
country, and make yourself renowned, not only in Athens, but 
throughout all Greece ; nay, it may be, your fame will spread 
abroad among the most barbarous nations, like another Theniistocles, 
while admiration and applause attend wherever you go 1 ' 

" Socrates, having thus fired the imagination of the young man, 
and secured himself a favourable hearing, went on, — ' But, if your 
design is to receive honour from your country, you intend to be of 
use to it, for nothing but that can secure its applause ? ' * Undoubt- 
edly,' replied Glauco. ' Tell me, then, I entreat you, what may be 
the first service you intend to render the republic ? ' 

" Glauco remained silent, as not knowing what to answer. * I 
suppose,' said Socrates, ' you mean to enrich it ? for that is generally 
the method we take, when we intend to aggrandize the family of 
some friend.' 'This is indeed my design,' returned the other, 
' liut the way to do this,' said Socrates, ' is to increase its revenues.' 
' It is so.' 'Tell me then, I pray you, whence the revenues of the 
republic arise, and what they annually amount to; since I doubt 
not of your having diligently enquired into each particular, so as to 
be able to supply every deficiency, and, when one source fails, can 
easily have recourse to some other.' 

'* ' I protest to you,' said Glauco, ' this is a point I never considered.' 
' Tell me, then, only its annual expenses; for I suppose you intend to re- 
trench whatever appears superfluous?' 'I cannot say,' replied Glauco, 
' that I have yet thought of this affair any more than of the otiicr.' 

" ' We must postpone, then, our design of enriching the republic 
to another time,' said Socrates, ' for I see not how a person can 
exert his endeavours to any purpose, so long as he continues 
ignorant both of its income and expenses.' ' Yet a State may l)e en- 
riched by the spoils of its enemies.' 'Assuredly,' replied Socrates, 
' but, in order to do this, its strength should be superior, otherwise 
it may be in danger of losing what it hath already. Me, therefore, 
who advises war, ought to be well acquainted not only with the forces 
of his own country, but those of the enemy; to the end that, if he 



56 Socrates and his method of teaching 

finds superiority on his side, he may boldly persist in his first 
opinion, or recede in time and dissuade the people from the 
hazardous undertaking.' ' It is very true,' returned the other. 
*I pray you, then, tell me what are our forces by sea and land; 
and what are the enemy's? ' ' In truth, Socrates, I cannot pretend 
to tell you, at once, either one or the other.' ' Possibly you may 
have a list of them in writing? If so, I should attend to your 
reading it with pleasure.' 'No, nor this,' replied Glauco, 'fori 
have not yet begun to make any calculation of the matter.' ' I per- 
ceive, then,' said Socrates, ' we shall not make war in a short time; 
since an affair of such moment cannot be duly considered at the 
beginning of your administration. But I take it for granted,' con- 
tinued he, ' that you have carefully attended to the guarding our 
coasts; and know where it is necessary to place garrisons, and what 
the number of soldiers to be employed for each; that, while you are 
diligent to keep those complete which are of service to us, you may 
order such to be withdrawn as appear superfluous.' 

"' It is my opinion,' replied Glauco, 'that every one of them should 
be taken away, since they only ravage the country they were appointed 
to defend.' ' But what are we to do, then,' said Socrates, ' if our 
garrisons are taken away? How shall we prevent the enemy from 
overrunning Attica at pleasure? And who gave you this intelligence, 
that our guards discharge their duty in such a manner? Have you 
been among them? ' 'No, but I much suspect it.' ' As soon, then,' 
said Socrates, ' as we can be thoroughly informed of the matter, 
and have not to proceed on conjecture only, we will speak of it to 
the Senate.' ' Perhaps,' replied Glauco, ' this may be the best way.' 
' I can scarcely suppose,' continued Socrates, ' that you have visited 
our silver mines so frequently as to assign the cause why they have 
fallen off so much of late from their once flourishing condition?' 
* I have not been at all there,' answered Glauco. . . ." 

After many other questions had brought out clearly 
the need of more accurate, practical knowledge as the 
equipment of a statesman, Socrates concludes : — 

" If, therefore, you desire to be admired and esteemed by your 
country beyond all others, you must exceed all others in the know- 
ledge of those things which you are ambitious of undertaking; and, 
thus qualified, I shall not scruple to insure your success, whenever 
you may think proper to preside over the Commonwealth." 



Negative results 57 



"The school of a philosopher," says Epictetus, "is ^Negative 
surgery. You do not come to it for pleasure, but for j\gcessayily 
pain. If one of you brings me a dislocated shoulder, /;-wzV/^jj. 
and another divers disorders, shall I sit uttering trifling 
exclamations and let you go away as you came?" You 
observe that Socrates' method of interrogation was often 
of a humbling and painful kind; it forced home to his 
collocutor the very unwelcome conviction that he was 
more ignorant than he supposed. There are three stages 
in the intellectual history of a man in relation to the 
knowledge of any subject. The first, and lowest, is 
unconscious, satisfied ignorance. The next stage is one 
of ignorance too, but of ignorance unmasked, awakened 
and ashamed of itself. The third, and highest, is that 
which follows the possession of clear and reasoned truth. 
But the second condition is necessary to the last. \Ve 
cannot vault out of ignorance into wisdom at one bound, 
we must travel slowly and toilsomely along the intermedi- 
ate steps ; and Socrates thought he did a service to an 
enquirer if he could only succeed in helping him to reach 
the second step, and so to be fairly on the right road. 

A very significant feature of his teaching was the The invcs- 
great importance he attached to the right and accurate ly^rlh^and 
use of words. Many of the dialogues which Plato h'^'s, their 
recorded for us turn almost wholly on the definition of ^''^"^^^"S^- 
some word or phrase. Few of us know, until we try, 
how hard it is to give a concise and perfect definition of 
even the most familiar word, and how much harder it is 
to make sure that we always attacli precisely the same 
meaning to it. Now Socrates thought that an examina- 
tion of these difiiculties would be of great use to peo})le 
generally, and to disputants in particular. So he would 
take a man who either in his business or in liis argumen- 
tation was in the habit of employing some particular 



58 Socrates and Ids uictJiod of teaching 

term. He would gently ask him to define that term. 
Whatever answer was given he would quietly accept and 
repeat. He would then propose a question or two, 
intended to illustrate the different senses in which the 
word might be applied ; and, in doing this, would make 
it evident, either that the definition was too wide and 
needed to be restricted a little, or that it was too narrow 
and did not comprehend enough. The respondent 
would then ask leave to retract his former definition, 
and to amend it. When this was done, the inexorable 
questioner would go on cross-examining on the subject, 
ai3plying the amended definition to new cases, until 
answers were given inconsistent with each other and 
with the previous reply. And, at the end of this pitiless 
cross-examination, it would often appear that the respon- 
dent, after vain efforts to extricate himself, admitted that 
he could give no satisfactory answer to the demand 
which at first had appeared so simple. 

And I am sure that we, as teachers, have a special 
interest in that part of the Socratic teaching which bore 
upon the exact connotation and the right use of words. 
Grammar, verbal and logical analysis, rhetoric, style — all 
these things will still, notwithstanding the occasional 
satire and remonstrances of the modern professors of 
science, hold their own as among the chief instruments 
in the training of a human being or an active and a 
thoughtful life. And why? — Because a copious vocabu- 
lary is a storehouse of thoughts. Because, whatever we 
are hereafter to learn, whether about History, Politics, 
Astronomy, or Physics, must, to a large extent, be 
learned from books ; and because v/hatever gives us 
greater command of the language of books, and a more 
exact conception of the significance of that language, 
enlarges our resources as thinking beings. 



Mcajiings of ivords 59 

Yet the philosopher's method of pursuing a general 6"^;//^ 
term into all its hiding-places, of amending, expanding, ^'^^^^f^!^ 
and contracting a definition, until it fitted exactly the ting for 
qualities of the thing defined was — though useful asj?), ■^- . 
a method of confutation with grave men, especially with youiig 
superficial pretenders — not a model for us to imitate ha- ^^^^''"^''-■ 
bitually in a school. Nor is the Socratic dpu>veia a lawful 
expedient for use in teaching young learners. They do 
not need to have their ignorance exposed. We do not 
help them by plying them with questions and humbling 
them with a sense of their own inferiority to ourselves. 
Occasionally, I have no doubt, it is useful to take a lesson 
on a single word, — I will say, constitution, virtue, experience, 
proof, laiu, influence J — trace it through all the stages of its 
development, and the shades of its meaning ; and then 
ask the scholar himself, after this inductive exercise, to 
define the word, and to take care that the definition shall 
cover all its legitimate applications. We want, of course, 
that our scholars shall know the meaning of the words 
they use. But the meaning of a word as learned by heart 
from a dictionary or a spelling-book is of no value. It 
is, indeed, owing to its necessary brevity, often worse 
than useless. The true way to teach young learners 
the significance of a word is, after a brief explanation, 
to tell them to take the word and use it. " Write four 
or five sentences containing the word." "Give a short 
narrative in which this word shall be used three times in 
different senses." Or, "Take these two words, which are 
apparently synonymous, and employ them in such a way 
as to show that you see the less obvious distinctions in 
their meaning." The object aimed at by the Socratic 
elenchus among grown-up controversialists may be at- 
tained, among young scholars, by this simpler and less 
irritating process. 



6o Socrates and his method of teachitig 

Ambiguity But, to the philosopher, the duty of looking straight 
and verbal- ^j^^ \it2.xX. of a word's meaning, of stripping it of all 
the vague associations which might have clustered round 
it, seemed indispensable as part of the mental purgation 
which should precede the acquisition of true wisdom. 
He would not discuss a subject until the exact sense in 
wliich the leading words were to be used was fixed. He 
would allow none of that verbal legerdemain by which 
the same word could be used in two senses in different 
stages of the argument. He would not permit the dis- 
cussion to be mystified by a metaphor, however familiar 
and apposite, until the hmits to which the analogy 
extended, and the point beyond which it did not extend, 
were clearly marked. At one time, one of the professors 
of Rhetoric would be found seeking to attract pupils by 
declaiming in favour of the art he taught : — 

Goff^ias. "' What is rhetoric?' said Socrates calmly to Gorgias one day. 

' A grand science,' was the reply. ' But the science of what? ' *Of 
words.' ' But of what words? Is it the science, for example, of such 
words as a physician would use to a patient ? ' ' No, certainly.' ' Then 
rhetoric is not concerned with all words?' 'No, indeed.' 'Yet 
it makes men able to speak?' 'Undoubtedly that is its purpose,' 
' Does it help them to think, too, on the subject of which they speak ? ' 
' Certainly.' ' But, surely, the science of medicine is designed to 
help a man both to think and to speak on those matters which con- 
cern diseases. Is this science therefore rhetoric? ' ' No, indeed.' " 

So he goes on mentioning one science after another 
in which speech and thought are alike necessary, and 
compelling Gorgias to admit that rhetoric is none of 
these. At last he takes refuge in the general statement 
that rhetoric is the art of persuasion, and instances the 
fact that, in all public movements, a fluent speaker 
exercises more influence over the multitude than any 
one else. Socrates proceeds to enquire whether, if the 
question related to ship-building, a rhetorician or a ship- 



TJic Rhetor s art 6 1 



builder would be the best guide ; and, after a few more 
questions, convicts his interlocutor of professing an art 
which seeks to produce persuasion without knowledge, 
and therefore only useful for the unthinking and the 
ignorant. Gorgias afterwards shifts his ground, and says 
that the true province of rhetoric is that persuasion 
which relates to the highest matters, that which is 
required in courts of justice, and in determining ques- 
tions of right and wrong, of virtue and its opposite. A 
few more questions lead up to the admission that, if this 
be the case, rhetoricians ought to know more than other 
people about these great subjects, and to be holier and 
better persons than their fellow-citizens. Gorgias did 
not like this. He could only chafe, and fret, and be 
irritated. He could not deny that it was precisely in 
this sort of word-warfare it was his profession to be 
victorious, and that in this case he had not been the 
conqueror. Perhaps, if he were a vain pedant, he would 
take care to come no more in the way of Socrates and 
his pitiless dialectics ; but, if he were a modest and 
sincere searcher after truth, he would be the wiser after 
all this bewilderment, even though the conversation had 
only led to a negative and unsatisfactory result. Per- 
plexity is the beginning and first product of philosophy. 
It is necessary that all excepted truths should be put to 
the question, and all suppositions given up, in order that 
they may hereafter be recovered and placed in their true 
light by means of the philosophic process. This process 
was in Socrates's time beginning to be applied to moral 
problems- chiefly, and to the recognized hypotheses about 
ethics and sociology. It was reserved for a later age — 
for Bacon and for Descartes, and Boyle and Leibnitz, 
their successors, to see the true function of the sceptical 
spirit in the domain of physics, and of the natural world. 



62 Socrates and his method of teaching 



Relation of The little dialogue I have just summarized illustrates 

knowledge 
to virtue. 



knowledf^e ^^^ feature, and that perhaps the most vulnerable feature, 



of the teaching of Socrates. He insisted that all virtue 
was ultimately knowledge, and resolved all vice into 
ignorance and folly. This is a favourite doctrine of Plato, 
and is indeed only found in the Platonic dialogues. 
Aristotle describes him as teaching that all virtues are 
really sciences {<f>povi^(T€L<; lirL(jTrjixa<i clvac Traaas ra? 
d/oeras). , Herein, no doubt, Socrates tells the truth, but 
not the whole truth. A certain state of the affections 
and of the will is not less indispensable as a condition of 
virtue than a certain state of the intelligence. Aristotle 
is justified in complaining that two elements seem to be 
wanting in the teaching ascribed to Socrates — the Tra^o?, 
or feeling in favour of what was right, and the yOo^, or 
the habit of right doing. Still, Socrates was right in 
insisting that there can be no true virtue without an 
intelhgent consciousness of what we are doing and of 
the reasons for doing it. Stupid, helpless acquiescence 
in the mode of conduct prescribed for us by others, may 
be very convenient to rulers, to schoolmasters, and to 
parents ; but it is not virtue. 

On this point Mr Grote has well said,^ " Socrates meant 
by knowledge something more than is directly implied in 
the word. He had present to his mind as the grand 
depravation of a human being, not so much vice as mad- 
ness — that state in which a man does not know what he 
is doing. Against the vicious man securities both public 
and private may be taken with considerable effect ; 
against the madman there is no security except perpetual 
restraint. ..Madness was ignorance at its extreme pitch. 
There were many varieties and gradations in the scale of 
ignorance, which if accompanied by false conceit of 

1 History of Greece^ Vol. VII. p. 136, 



The hal^KDv of Socrates 63 

knowledge differs from madness only in degree. The worst 
of all ignorance was when a man was ignorant of himself." 

Perhaps it was in regard to his theory on this point, T/ie 
and to his general view of ethical questions, that Socrates ^ ^^J^^J 
incurred most dislike on the part of the Athenian people, 
and was most often misunderstood. He was wont to talk 
much of his SatixMv or genius, as if he had within him 
a divine guide in matters of conduct, a prophetic or 
supernatural voice nearly always prohibiting or warning, 
rarely stimulating or instructive — a tutelary influence such 
as was peculiar to himself, and was not always accessible 
to others. Hegel truly interprets this, when he says that 
by it the philosopher only meant to symbolize the peculiar 
form in which private judgment appeared in Socrates him- 
self. Many Greeks, however fond of merely intellectual 
speculation, were little used to determine their actions 
by a process of reflection. Still less were they \vont to 
refer to anything analogous to \vhat we call conscience. 
Its place was supplied by habitual conformity to law and 
usage. The path of duty was so accurately marked as 
to leave little room for hesitation. And as to cases 
not expressly determined by legitimate authority or 
custom, neither the State nor its individual members 
presumed to decide for themselves, but they sought the 
guidance of the gods by consulting an oracle or by 
divination. There have been many speculations about 
the meaning of the Socratic Sai/xwy, but they all resolve 
themselves into this, that the revolt from public opinion 
on the one hand, and from oracles on the other, took 
the form of insisting on individual responsibility, on the 
need for a clear unclouded judgment, on a belief that 
the voice of truth, the whisper of moral warning and 
encouragement, might be heard by those who were 
rightly prepared and disciplined to listen. 



64 Socrates and J lis method of teaching 

"But while this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it." 

It is the analogous doctrine to that which is found in 
the dreams and visions of the Hebrew prophets, and to 
the sweef and gracious legend which tells of the music 
of the spheres. There is the confession of man in all 
ages, of his need of access to something higher, truer, 
diviner than himself. Grant that it means nothing but 
the purified conscience, the truth heard in silence and 
meditation, — is it not, under all these forms, the Divine 
voice, audible, like the music of the spheres, to the 
devout and reverent hearer, and to him alone? And, 
as you read the dialogues of Socrates, and find him so 
often appealing to something in his hearer and in himself 
nearer than a custom, a law, a teacher, or an oracle, you 
are reminded of One of whom we spoke in the last lecture, 
who never paced the groves of Academus, but whose 
steps were in the streets of Jerusalem or over the hills 
of Galilee, and who, when questioned about some moral 
or casuistical question, directed His answer straight to 
the inner conscience of the questioner himself. We saw 
illustrations of this in our last Lecture. Let me add 
another, which is curiously characteristic of the Socratic 
method. A questioner asks : " Who is my neighbour? " 
and the answer comes, not in a categorical shape, but in 
the form of a story : " A certain man went down from 
Jerusalem to Jericho," — and then, when the whole story 
is told, comes the home thrust, *'W1iich now of these 
three thinkest thou was neighbour unto him that fell 
among thieves ? " We, too, may well desire, when dealing 
with our pupils, to abstain from telling them what, with 
a little trouble, they might find out for themselves, and to 
appeal more often from prescription and authority to the 
inner sense of right, which, however overlaid or silenced. 



Oracles 65 

is to be found deep down in all their hearts. Thus we 
may feel that we are working in harmony with the 
greatest teachers in all ages of the world. But this was 
not the view which the contemporaries of Socrates held 
about him and his SuLfxaiv. To them it seemed that he 
was setting up a new divine being, and inviting the 
Athenians to exchange for this object of worship their 
old gods. And Socrates did not care to correct this 
impression, although the main accusation made by 
Anytus at the trial was that he had sought to overthrow 
the belief in the national divinities and oracles. 

He did not, however, denounce oracles, although he Oracles. 
did not consult them for himself or recommend his 
disciples to appeal to them. One day, one of those 
disciples, named Chierephon, went to Delphi, and pro- 
posed to the god the question whether any man was 
wiser than Socrates. The answer was in the negative. 
Long after, in his defence at the trial, he described the 
effect of this news on himself. He said : — 

'■ Why, what enigma is this? For I am not conscious to myself 
that I am wise, either much or little. What can the god mean by 
raying that I am the wisest? So I went for myself to one of those 
who have the reputation of being wise, thinking that there, if any- 
where, I should confute the oracle. But, when I came to question 
him, he appeared indeed to be wise in the opinion of most other 
men, and especially in his own, though indeed he was not so. So 1 
tried to show him that what he took for knowledge was only opinion 
and conjecture, and in this way 1 became odious to him and to 
many others present. When I left him 1 reasoned thus with myself: 
' I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know any- 
thing great or true, but he fancies he knows something, whereas I, 
as I do n(it know anything, do not fancy that I do.' In this trifling 
particular only do I appear to be wiser than he. 

Afterwards I went to the poets, but a little close cross-examina- 
tion brought me to a like conclusion respecting them. l>ut when I 
went to the artizans, I said to myself, ' Here, indeed, is something 
in which I am inferior to these men, for they possess some very 
F 



66 Socrates and his 'tnethod of teaching 

beautiful knowledge.' And in this I was not deceived, for they 
knew things which I did not, and, in this respect, were wiser than I. 
But even the best of these men, because he excelled in the practice 
of his art, thought himself knowing in most other matters, and this 
mistake obscured the wisdom he already possessed. So I asked 
myself, on behalf of the oracle, whether I should prefer to continue 
as I am, possessing none, either of their special knowledge or of their 
ignorant estimate of themselves, or to have both as they have. And 
it seemed to me, on the whole, that I had best continue as I am," 

Handi- Yoli will see that, on one point much discussed 

'^^''^^^' among the educational reformers of our time — the 
educative virtue of mere handicraft — Socrates would 
probably not have agreed with the current opinion. He 
would not have regarded manual training as a good 
substitute for intellectual disciphne. He had seen that 
certain mechanical dexterities might easily co-exist with 
complete stagnation of mind, with great poverty of ideas, 
and with a curious conceit as to the proportion and 
relative worth of the sort of knowledge the artizan did 
not happen to possess. I think, if he were to be con- 
sulted in our day by the advocates of technical education, 
he would say, ''Train people's hands and eyes by all 
means, but train the understanding at the same time. 
Let your pupil know well the properties of the materials 
he is using, and the nature and limits of the forces he 
employs. Let your handwork be made subservient to 
careful measurement, to the cultivation of taste and 
intelligence, to the perception of artistic beauty, and 
then it will play a real part in the development of what 
is best in the human being ; but, unless you do this, you 
will get little or no true culture out of carpentering, 
modelling, or needlework." 
Physical Mr Grote says, " Physics and Astronomy belonged in 

the opinion of Socrates to the divine class of phenomena, 
in which human research was insane, fruitless and even 



Science. 



TJie Physical Sciences 6/ 

impious." He protested against the presumption of Anax- 
agoras who had, he said, degraded HeHos and Selene into 
a sun and moon of calculable motions and magnitudes.^ 

Nor from any of those studies which have of late 
years appropriated the name of Science, did Socrates 
hope very much. He tells us, in the Fhcedo, that he had 
in early life felt great interest in enquiries concerning 
natural phenomena. " I was eager," he said, " for the 
investigation of Nature. I thought it a matter of pride 
to know the causes of things. At length, fatigued with 
studying objects through the perceptions of the senses 
only, I looked for the ideas, or reflections of them, in 
the mind, and turned my attention to words and dis- 
courses." It must be owned that what he called the 
investigation of Nature was not physical science in the 
modern sense of the term — the discovery, recordation, 
and systematic arrangement of facts. It was rather the 
search for some primary principles by which the flicts of 
Nature might be explained. Be this as it may, he found 
the enquiry fruitless and unsatisfying, and he concluded, 
though somewhat rashly, that the mysteries of the 
physical world were not fitting subjects for human 
investigation. 

The example of Socrates is specially instructive, as Converse. 
it regards his method of inviting the co-operation of his^^^"; ''" 
disciples in the discussion of difficulties and in the search //>;/,?/ ///- 
for truth. Mr Grote has said, " His object w\as not to mul- ■^^''"'''^«^- 
tiply proselytes or to procure authoritative assent, but to 
create earnest seekers, analytical intellects, foreknowing 
and consistent agents, capable of forming conclusions 
for themselves ; as well as to force them into that path 
of inductive generalization whereby alone trustworthy . 
conclusions are to be formed." ^ And this object he 

1 Grote's History of Greece, Vol. vil. p. 130. 



68 Socrates and his method of teaching 

sought to attain not by didactic lectures but by the 
heuristic and conversational method, by making a theory 
or a philosophical problem the subject of free talk, by 
starting difficulties, by citing examples and by what 
Johnson called a " brisk reciprocation of objections and 
replies." 
Need for This is not a method adapted for a teacher's use in 

c'oUoqmes dealing with young children ; but with elder scholars it 
ivith elde7' may often be employed with great advantage. Much 
of the hesitation and confusion which characterize the 
average Englishman, in expressing his own thoughts on 
serious subjects or in public, arises from the fact that in 
our education there has been, on the part of his teachers, 
abundant use of monologue, but very little of dialogue. 
We do not often enough challenge a scholar to tell in 
his own words what he thinks or what he knows. Still 
less do we ask him to give a reason for any opinion he 
holds. Now although much of Socrates's teaching was 
directed against sophistry, and false rhetoric, there runs 
through it all a conviction of the importance of clear 
statement, and the desire to encourage accurate expres- 
sion for whatever thoughts the learner had in his mind. 
And the main instrument in achieving this end was 
conversation. It is manifestly better suited for some 
subjects than for others. It would seldom be needed for 
the discussion of facts in physical science, for mathe- 
matics, or for the grammar of a language. Nor should we 
ask a learner to express an opinion on a topic on which 
he has had no means of forming one. But after lessons in 
history, or philosophy, or any of the sciences which bear 
on morals or conduct, an informal colloquy between the 
teachers and the members of a small upper class will be 
found to give an excellent stimulus not only to thinking, 
but also to the practice of correct and forcible expression. 



Subjects suited for colloquy 69 

For example, I have known a teacher who reserved Some 
half-an-hour a week for a conversational lesson with the"^"^/'?'^.- 

statea jor 

highest class on a character in history, on some book, or on such collo- 
the elementary truths of economic science. Such topics '^'''''^* 
as wages, the values of various kinds of work, division of 
labour, taxes, money, interest, and the conditions of 
professional success, are specially interesting to elder boys 
beginning to think about the business of life. The role 
of pedagogue is for the time laid aside by the teacher, 
and he and his scholars talk round the ethical or the 
economic problem on equal terms. In like manner, to 
elder girls of the upper and middle class, who look for- 
ward to a life of usefulness, and who ha\e philanthropic 
instincts, these and the cognate questions of charity, 
forethought, thrift, the right way of organizing relief, 
the best way to administer the Poor Law, and to help 
people to help themselves, are matters of great moment, 
and are demanding and receiving increased attention. 
In all this domain of thought and of human experience, 
.there are many current popular fallacies, which a little 
Socratic investigation would soon detect and remove. A 
French writer, Frederic Bastiat, wrote a book once called 
Ce qu'on voit, et ce que non voit pas, and exposed by a 
series of ilkistrations the difference between what is seen 
and what is not seen in the practical economy of life. At 
first sight men conclude, e.g. that war is good for trade 
because it makes the money fly ; that the saving and 
careful master of a fortune is not so good a friend to the 
community as the spendthrift ; that almsgiving is always 
a virtue ; that capital and labour have antagonist inter- 
ests ; that the State ought to have nothing to do with 
education, with art, with public recreation ; and that all 
these things should be left to private enterprise. It is 
good that elder scholars at least should \v\\\\\ to tliink 



JO Socrates and Ids method of teaching 

about these and the hke topics, and to balance the 
considerations which may be urged for and against any 
general conclusions on such subjects. They need to 
bring examples and experience together, from different 
sources, to examine apparent exceptions to general 
rules, and to suspend judgment. And for all these 
purposes, conversational lessons are the best — lessons in 
which the scholars are invited to suggest difficulties, to 
start hypotheses and to examine plausible fallacies. Here 
is a feature of Greek education which, to say the truth, 
is somewhat lacking in ours. One part of school train- 
ing should be directed to the art of forming conclusions 
on matters of high public interest, to the discipline which 
helps a man to explain, and, if needful, to maintain and 
defend the opinions he is supposed to hold. Here is 
a region in which one familiar with Socratic dialectics 
will be at a great advantage over all others, and in 
which that method of intellectual enquiry will be found 
specially applicable. Only it deserves to be noticed that 
to conduct such a conversation to good purpose requires 
no little skill and alertness of mind on the part of the 
teacher ; and that sympathetic insight and a sense of 
humour are also indispensable. 
A dialogue The well-known story of the sophist Meno and the 
oj search, ^lave-boy illustrates one conspicuous feature in the 
Socratic teaching as it is expounded in Plato. You will 
remember, Meno has been complaining that Socrates's 
conversations had the effect of preventing him from 
feeling any confidence in himself. " You remind me, 
Socrates, of that broad sea-fish, the torpedo, which 
benumbs those whom it touches. For, indeed, I am 
benumbed both in mind and mouth, and do not know 
what or how to answer." Whereupon, Socrates calls a 
slave-boy to him, draws on a line two feet long a square 



A dialogue of search yi 

on the grouiul with a stick, and asks him first whether it is 
possible to have a square double the size, and next what 
should be the length of the line on which such a square 
should be drawn. The boy answers promi)tly, that for 
the double square the line should be of double the 
length, or four feet. Socrates turns to Meno and says, 
" You see that this boy thinks he knows, but does not 
really know." He then goes on to draw another square 
on the double line, and teacher and pupil observe to- 
gether that this is not twice but four times the size. The 
boy is puzzled and suggests a line three feet long ; but 
further trial shows that the square thus formed contains 
nine square feet instead of eight. Whereupon Socrates 
enquires of the boy, since neither a line of three feet, 
nor a line of four feet, will serve as the base of the re- 
quired double square, " What is the true length? " and the 
answer is, " By Jove, Socrates, I do not know." Here 
the master again turns to Meno, and says, " Observe, 
this boy at first knew not the right length of the desired 
line, neither does he yet know ; but he then fancied he 
knew, and answered boldly, as a knowing person would. 
]]nt he is now at a loss, and, as he knows not, does not 
even think he knows." "True," says Meno. "But 
then," replies Socrates, " is he not in a better condition 
now than at first, in regard to the matter of which he 
was and is still ignorant ? " " Certainly." " So in benumb- 
ing him like the torpedo, and making him speechless for 
a time, have we done him any harm? " Then by a series 
of experimental drawings, which Socrates makes partly 
by help of suggestions on the part of the boy, he comes 
at last to draw the diagonal of the first square, and to 
erect a second square on that, and so to reveal clearly 
to the learner the true method of solving the problem 
proposed. 



Socrates and his method of teaching 



Kftojv- 
ledge, 
implicit 
as ivell as 
explicit. 



The doc- 
trine of 
reminis- 
cence. 



You will notice one important point in connexion 
with tliis dialogue with Meno. Socrates held that all 
teaching need not come in the shape of teaching. 
" You see," said he, " that I teach this boy nothing. 
I only help him to find and express what is already in 
his mind." The truth is there. It is discoverable if we 
only put him on the right track. It is better that he 
should find it for himself, or at least take a fair share 
in the investigation, than that we should give him 
any information about it in an explicit or didactic 
form. 

This belief that a true educational discipline con- 
sisted rather in searching and finding knowledge, 
than in passively receiving it, was a prominent item 
in vSocrates's creed. He thought that a great part of 
what men wanted to know they might find out by self- 
interrogation, by meditation, and by purely internal 
mental processes. And if you had asked Socrates or 
Plato how he accounted for this fact, his answer would 
have been a curious one. He would have said that 
while it was the duty of a teacher to make our knowledge 
explicit, much of it was in fact implicit, a survival of 
what had been known in a former state of existence. He 
believed that the human soul has not only a great future, 
but also a great past ; and that many of our thoughts are, 
in fiict, reminiscences — faint echoes and memories of 
those which we have had in a former life. There are 
truths, he said, which, when we search down into the 
inner mind, we recognize dimly as old acquamtances, 
and yet which we have never consciously perceived since 
we were born. All the occupations and interests of this 
life, no doubt, tend to overlay these truths, — to bury 
them out of their sight ; but they are there, requiring 
only the purified vision and the dialectical discipline to 



TJie doctrine of rcininiscciicc 73 

bring them into consciousness again. INIuch of what we 
call knowledge is, in fact, recollection. It would not be 
right to say that Socrates formulated this notion of a pre- 
existent Hfe into a creed, — it was not the habit of his 
mind to dogmatize on such subjects, — but it seems 
certain that he believed it, and that he accounted for 
many of the facts of our intellectual life on this hypo- 
thesis. The whole doctrine, however, has, as I need 
hardly tell you, no place in modern philosophy. It takes 
no account of experience ; none, of associations or the 
reflex action of sensation and thought ; none, of hereditary 
tendencies ; none, of the daily discipline through which 
the least observant child is passing, even when he is not 
conscious that he is learning anything. And, as a philo- 
sophical theory, it has the serious defect that it offers to 
us a fanciful and wholly unverified hypothesis to account 
for mental phenomena which are explicable by much 
simpler and more natural considerations. What the dia- 
logue really does is, not to unearth buried or forgotten 
knowledge but only to formulate and bring into clearer 
vision elementary truths hitherto seen obscurely, half 
known by intuition and contact with objects, but not 
known consciously as truths intellectually expressible. 

But, though the doctrine of a pre-natal existence has Pre-natal 
disappeared from philosophy, it lingers still — where, '^■*'"^^'^'^'^* 
indeed, the finer aroma and essence of all speculation 
ought to linger — in our poetry. Perhaps the noblest burst 
of poetic inspiration which our century has witnessed, 
is to be found in ^^'ordsworth's ode, " Intimations of 
Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." 
And in that well-known poem there are some echoes of 
the Socratic, or rather the Platonic, theory of reminis- 
cence, which, though faint, will yet be very audible to 
us, as I read some of the lines : — 



74 Socrates ajid his method of teaching 

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And Cometh from afar : 
Not in entire forgetfulness 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 

From God who is our home. 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing boy; 
But he beholds the light and whence it flows^ 

He sees it in his joy. 
The youth who daily farther from the East 
Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 
And, by the vision splendid, 
Is on his way attended. 
At length the man perceives it die away 
And fade into the light of common day. 

" Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own, 
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 
And even with something of a mother's mind, 
And no unworthy aim, 
The homely nurse doth all she can 
To make her foster-child, her inmate man. 

Forget the glories he hath known, 
And that imperial palace whence he came. 

" Hence, in a season of calm weather. 
Though inland far we be. 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither, — 
Can in a moment travel thither 
And see the children sport upon the shore. 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." 

Socrates a But it is not alone as a dialectician, but as a preacher 

preai leroj ^^ righteousiiess that Socrates best deserves to be re- 

rtgkteous- ° 

jiess. membered. His high ideals, his scorn of unreality and 

pretence, the constant strain in;,^ of his eyes after the 



Socnifcs a preacher of rigJiteousjicss 75 

discovery of truth, and his efforts to remove all hindrances 
which conventionahties and prejudices placed in the way 
of such discovery, are after all the qualities which entitle 
him to rank among the world's noblest teachers. That 
is a touching and characteristic picture which Plato 
gives of the conversation of the old philosopher with 
Phaedrus, as they walked by the Ilissus, and after cooling 
their feet in the stream and finding a seat under a tower- 
ing plane tree, occupied themselves during the long hours 
of a summer's day discoursing of duty, and immortahty, 
of knowledge and ignorance, of truth and falsehood, of 
holiness and virtue. And at the end of their talk on 
these high matters they rise to depart homewards and 
Socrates says, " My dear Phaedrus, would it not be well to 
offer up a prayer to the gods before we go? " And when 
Phaedrus assents, the old sage lifts up his voice and says : 

'' Beloved Pan and all ye other gods who here abide, 
grant me to be beautiful in the inner soul, and all I have 
of outward things to be in harmony with those within. 
May I count the wise man alone rich. And may my own 
store of gold be only such as none but the good can bear." 

As I read these words you are reminded of another 
teacher who prayed for those whom he taught and 
loved that they '' might be strengthened with might 
in the inner man." Paul it is true did not regard Pan 
and the Sylvan deities as the sources of the help he 
needed, but he and Socrates were alike in looking for 
strength and inspiration to the highest source they knew, 
and opening their hearts to the best and noblest influ- 
ences which they believed to be accessible to them. 
What more can any of us hope to do? 

We all know that Socrates became an object of The accu- 
popular hatred. Men like to see their disbeliefs as welH'^^"'" 
as their beliefs incarnate. Abstract principles excite in Socrates. 



^jd Socrates and his method of teaching 

them a comparatively languid interest and but little 
enthusiasm. But, let principles be represented in the 
person of a man, and there is at once something to love 
or to hate, something to adore or to denounce. Now, 
Socrates stood to the Athenian people as the living 
symbol of the principle of nonconformity, of intellectual 
unrest, of the spirit which doubts and questions the 
perfection of established institutions and the truth of 
established beliefs. In all ages of the world, such 
persons are unpopular, because their presence is incon- 
venient. I suppose in no other, city than Athens would 
the community so long have tolerated a man who be- 
longed to no party, but who regarded some of the pet 
beliefs of all parties to be equally untenable. Accord- 
ingly, you are not surprised that Anytus, Melitus, and 
Lykon, presented to the Dikastery, and hung up in the 
appointed place in the portico of the Archon, a formal 
accusation charging him with the twofold crime of not 
believing the popular faith, and of corrupting the youth 
by leading them also to be sceptical. The accusation 
was made in open court ; the case was tried by one of 
those enormous Athenian juries, which consisted of 550 
members, who, by a majority of five, condemned him 
and sentenced him to death. 
His trial. On the circumstances of the trial, on the terms of 
his defence or Apologia, which are to be found, though 
differently told, in Plato and in Xenophon, I have no 
time now to dwell. The philosopher disdained to employ 
any of the usual artifices of rhetoric in his defence, made 
no appeal to the compassion of his judges, and calmly 
said that he believed he had a divine calling to the work 
which he had done, and that even if they would acquit him 
on condition of his ceasing to interrogate them, he could 
not accept his liberty on such terms. If, he said, they 



Trial of Socrates yy 

really desired to know what was the recompense to which 
he was entitled, it would be a home in the Prytanaeum — 
a dignified almshouse in which those Athenian citizens 
who had done the State eminent service, were honourably 
lodged at the public expense. 

During the interval between his conviction and death, 
some of his friends devised a plan for his escape, and 
Crito, one of the warmest of them, is deputed to go to 
him and ask his consent to the scheme. So the master 
begins calmly to question him in the old way as to the 
duty of a good citizen in regard to obedience to the laws. 
He brings Crito to admit that to defy the tribunal which 
he had always taught men to hold sacred, would be to 
neutralize all his former teaching : — 

" Within my own mind, Crito," he said, " the accustomed voice 
of my guardian deity, which has led me for nearly eighty years, 
has been very audible of late. ' Do you think, Socrates,' it said, ' to 
live for the sake of your children, that you may rear and educate 
them? What sort of education can you give them in another 
country, where they will be aliens, and yourself a dishonoured 
exile? Will they not be better educated by the memory of their 
father's rectitude, and by the loving care of his disciples and 
friends? Do not, therefore, be persuaded to set a higher value on 
your children or your life than on that justice you have so long 
taught men to respect. For, be assured, that the heroes and sages 
of our land, who are now in Hades, will receive you favourably if 
you depart out of this life with honour; and the gods, who gave 
you your commission, are looking lovingly upon you to see how 
faithfully you discharge it.' These words, my dear Crito, I have 
seemed to hear in my solitude, just as the votaries of Apollo seem to 
hear the music of his divine choir. And the sound of them comes 
ringing in my ears, and makes me almost incapal)le of listening to 
anything else. W^hat say you, my Crito, shall we discuss your 
plans of escape now?" " Indeed," said the sorrowful disciple, " 1 
have no more to say." 

It was on the last day of his imprisonment that 



yS Socrates and Jiis method of teacJiing 

the most memorable of his recorded conversations — the 
PhcBdo — took place. It related to the immortaUty of the 
soul ; and in it are to be found, logically drawn out, yet 
not without an overhanging sense of pathos and sadness, 
many of the merely natural arguments, on which in later 
days Christian writers, from St Augustine to Bishop 
Butler, have relied by way of antecedent proof of the 
soul's immortality and of the existence of a future state. 
His death. The sentence was that the philosopher should die by 
poison, and that it should be administered at sunset. 
We may picture to ourselves the scene in the little cell 
on the afternoon of the final day. Socrates sat upon the 
side of his bed talking as in old days, and round him 
were grouped some six or seven of his most affectionate 
disciples. As the shadows grew longer, and ray by ray 
the sun descended to the west, the conversation became 
more earnest, and the voices of the friends became more 
tremulous. Each looked into himself in search of the 
parting thought which he could not find ; each strove 
to fashion the farewell words he could not utter. The 
master alone seemed unmoved. Perhaps a little more 
eagerness than usual to bring the argument to a point 
might be observed ; but otherwise, he was as of old, 
disentangling subtleties and fallacies with the accustomed 
pertinacity, and striving rather to put his hearers in the 
right way to arrive at truth, than to give them a creed of 
his own. 

When near sunset, the gaoler entered and said, " I 
am come by order of the archons to bid you drink the 
hemlock. I have always found you to be the meekest, 
the most noble man that ever came into this place. Do 
not upbraid me, therefore, for you know it is not I that 
am to blame." And, bursting into tears, he withdrew. 
Turning to his friends, Socrates said, " How courteous 



His death 79 

this man is ! He has visited me, and proved the 
worthiest and kindest of men, and now you see how 
generously he weeps for me. Is the hemlock ready ? " 
One of his friends remarks, " I think, Socrates, that the 
sun is still upon the mountains and has not yet set, and 
I have known some men even who have drunk the potion 
very late, and have had time to sup and drink freely 
first." 

" Those men whom you mention," said Socrates, " do 
these things with good reason, and I, with good reason, 
will not do so ; for I think I shall gain nothing by 
drinking a little later, except to become ridiculous to 
myself in being so fond of life, and so sparing of it, 
when none remains. And now farewell. We part our 
several ways, you to live and I to die, but whether the 
one or the other is the better way none of us yet can 
know." 

This is an ancient and a familiar story — so ancient 
and so familiar, that I felt a little diffidence in bringing it 
under the notice of this audience, among whom are some 
who know it much better than I do. Yet it has not 
wholly lost its moral significance. Much of the teaching 
of Socrates is now obsolete. Some of the objects he 
sought to attain, we have long learned to regard as unat- 
tainable. But the difficulties with which he was con- 
fronted exist more or less in all ages of the world. He 
saw around him men who had never harboured doubts 
simply because they had never examined, who held con- 
victions all the more angrily simply because those con- 
victions had never been verified. The mere associations 
accidentally connected with the truths men loved, he 
saw were constantly mistaken for the real living truths 
themselves. He chose for the objects of his attack 
opinions without knowledge, acrjuicscence without insight. 



8o Socrates and J lis method of teacJiiiig 

words without meaning, and dogmas without proof. 
And, until these phenomena shall have become wholly 
extinct in the world, there will always be use in phi- 
losophy for the Socratic dialectics, and an honoured 
place in our educational history for the life of the phi- 
losopher himself. 



LECTURE III 
THE EVOLUTION OF CHARACTERS 

Charles Darwin. The main doctrines of Evolution. Their appli- 
cation to social life. Limits to the use of analogy. Character 
a growth, not a manufacture. Intellectual food and digestion. 
Punishments. Moral precejits. When general rules are ojiera- 
tive. Didactic teaching. Exjjeriences of childhood. The law 
of environment. The conditions of our life as determinants of 
character. How far these conditions are alterable at will. The 
moral atmosphere of a school. Influence of the teacher's personal 
character. Natural selection. Conscious selection of the fittest 
conditions. Degeneration. Unused faculties. Progression or 
retrogression. The law of divergence in plants and animals, 
and in social institutions, and in intellectual character. Special 
aptitudes and tastes. How far they should be encouraged. 
Eccentricity. Evolution a hopeful creed. The promise of the 
future. 

In the great Natural History Museum in London Charles 
there are illustrations, collected from all lands, of the I)^^>"'-i^'tn. 
different forms of animal life, from the tiniest insect 
to the ichthyosaurus ; and in all the halls of that vast 
and varied collection there is but one representation 
of man himself. It is a sitting figure in marble of 
Charles Darwin. Many naturalists before him had 
investigated the phenomena of the animal kingdom, 
and sought to classify and describe its denizens ; but 

1 An Address to the American Institute of Instruction, Newport, 
Rhode Island, July, i88S. 

G 8l 



82 The Evolution of Character 

to him it was given in a supreme degree to perceive 
the nature of animal and vegetable existence and to 
trace some of the laws of its development. Other writers 
may have dealt skilfully with problems of more or less 
ephemeral or local interest, with this or that particular 
country, literature, or religion ; but it was Darwin's 
vocation to search out the nature of Ufe itself — to in- 
quire into the laws of being, of growth, and of develop- 
ment in the animal and vegetable world. And these are 
subjects of profound and universal interest. They appeal 
to the living sympathies, the imagination, of all mankind, 
and to that concern about the past and future of his race 
which characterizes, in various degrees, every intelligent 
human being. 
The main You are all probably familiar with the main items 
^of Evohi- ^" ^^ modern creed of evolution. Varieties and different 
Hon. species of animals and plants are not accounted for by 

the hypothesis of separate acts of creation, but are the 
product partly of the conditions of environment, and 
partly of natural selection. Certain organs and qualities 
become strengthened by exercise and more and more 
fully developed in successive generations ; certain others 
become weakened by disuse, and gradually disappear or 
survive only in a rudimentary form. Lamarck had pointed 
out before Darwin that new wants in animals gave rise to 
new movements which in time produce organs, and that 
the development of these organs was in proportion to 
their employment. In the struggle for existence the 
weaker organisms are conquered, the stronger and the 
fitter prevail, and transmit their special qualities to 
posterity. Favourable variations in certain circumstances 
tend to be preserved and unfavourable to be destroyed, 
and the result is the formation from time to time of what 
are called new species and varieties. 



Social Evolution S'}^ 



Such are in briefest outline some of the generalizations 
to which the researches of biologists have at present led 
us. They may possibly be absorbed and superseded 
hereafter by some larger and more comprehensive in- 
ductions ; but at present they are accepted by men of 
science as at least the best provisional hypotheses we 
possess for explaining the genesis of the various forms of 
organic hfe on the earth. And when once the student 
of Darwin's writings grasps the meaning of these simple 
statements, he begins to perceive that they are far-reaching, 
and applicable to other departments of enquiry besides 
that which concerns the lives of animals and plants. 

In Herbert Spencer's writings on Sociology you will Their ap- 
find analogous methods of enquiry and of reasoning-J* '^^'''? 
apphed to the growth of laws and customs, to the history /z/^. 
of institutions, to the development of our social and 
political life. These things have not been shaped by 
accident ; they have not, so far as we can ascertain, had 
their forms consciously predetermined by any authority 
human or divine. They have become what they are by 
processes not unlike those which operate in the region 
of animated nature, by the conditions of existence, by 
climate, soil, circumstance ; by the motives which have 
determined the putting forth of energy ; and by the 
direction in which that energy has exerted itself. Into 
this wide and fruitful region of speculation we will not 
now attempt to travel. I am speaking to a body of 
teachers ; to whom the one subject of primary interest 
is the nature of the material on which they have to 
work — the mind, the character, the conduct of those 
whom they try to teach. And the question — the very 
limited and definite question — we have to ask is, What 
do the latest doctrines of scientific biology teach or 
suggest to us? What analogies are there between the 



§4 The Evolution of Character 



world of the naturalist and the world of the teacher? 
Can we get from the experience of the deep-sea explorer, 
of the physicist in his laboratory, or of the observer with 
his microscope, any practical counsels which will be of 
service to us in the manipulation of the finest piece of 
organism in the world, the character of a human being? 
Limits to Before answering these questions we are confronted 

the use of ^^-^^ ^^^ consideration which may well make us pause. 

analogy. ^ ^ 

Analogy is very interesting, but it may prove very mis- 
leading. We are not to mistake resemblances for iden- 
tity. There is at least one remarkable difference in the 
conditions under which the observant teacher and the 
observant naturalist must work. In the animal and 
vegetable worlds the separate organs and functions are 
all susceptible more or less of separate observation and 
of separate treatment. True, even here, there is what 
Darwin calls the " law of concomitant variations," in 
virtue of which change in one part of a complex structure 
is accompanied by certain marked and often unexpected 
changes in other parts. And this law actually holds 
good in a far higher degree in the region of mind than in 
that of organic matter. We frequently talk of attention, 
of memory, and of imagination, as if they were separate 
faculties, and when we are discussing the nature of the 
human mind we may easily make each faculty the subject 
of a separate effort of thought. But we cannot experi- 
ment upon them separately, or see them at work inde- 
pendently, as a surgeon can treat the eye or the ear, or 
as a biologist can deal with a seedling or a nerve. The 
brain is not a congeries of cells with different names and 
uses each demanding separate treatment. The powers 
and functions of the human mind are so interwoven, that 
you cannot in practice treat them apart, or strongly 
influence any one of them without exerting an important 



Characfer a GroivtJi 85 

reflex influence upon others. And hence the need of 

some caution when we are tempted to push too far the 

analogy between what goes on in the hot-house, the 

zoological gardens or the biological laboratory, and 

what goes on in the nursery or the school-room. 

Nevertheless when we have taken this precaution, Characfer 

there is one cardinal i)oint of resemblance between the '^ -^^'^'"^^ '' 

^ not a 

world of the naturalist and the world of the schoolmaster, mannfac- 
We are safe in taking for certain this one truth, that^"''^' 
human character, whether we look at it from its ethical 
or from its intellectual side, is the result of growth and 
not of manufacture. It is a living organism, and not a 
highly delicate and curious machine. And if we can 
firmly grasp this truth, we shall find it full of useful 
suggestion. Nothing that you can do to your pupil is 
of any use unless it touches the springs of his life. You 
are concerned with what he knows, because every fact 
or truth which is actually received and assimHated is 
capable of developing, becoming the germ of other 
knowledge, and so of forming and strengthening his in- 
tellectual character. You are concerned with what he 
docs, because every act is an exercise of power, and every 
such exercise of power helps to form a habit, and to 
make all future efforts of a similar kind easier and more 
probable. And you are concerned with what he/^vA, 
because it is on his tastes and preferences, on what he 
likes and cares about, that his power of moral movement 
depends. Which of the influences which surround liim 
shall ultimately prove most attractive and which of them 
he will resist — what in fact will be in his case the kind of 
natural selection which will control his future destiny — 
must be determined in tlie long run by his likes and dis- 
likes, by the strength and direction of sucli will-])ower 
as he possesses. In all these three ways the life of the 



86 TJie Ezwhitioji of Character 

human organism may be affected, and its future develop- 
ment may be aided. But observe, it is necessary, if this 
is to be done, that your treatment shall go down deep 
enough to touch the inner life. A gardener cannot rear 
a variety of red flowers by painting the petals red, or by 
putting them under a strong red light. He must adopt 
quite other methods. So if what your scholar knows is 
only impressed on him by authority, learned without 
interest, received without sympathy, and accepted with 
the intention of remembering it only till the next exami- 
nation and forgetting it directly afterwards, it is not for 
any true purpose of development known at all. And if 
what your scholar does at your bidding is done reluctantly, 
done because you are looking, and not intended to be 
done again when the pressure of authority has been 
removed, the act has not helped to form a habit and 
has been of no service whatever in the development of 
character. So too a feeling or emotion in favour of what 
is right is of httle or no formative value if it be merely 
transient. Unless it affects the permanent character of 
your scholar's tastes and moral preferences it does 
• nothing, and your labour, in so far as you are seeking 
to form in him a strong and manly character, is abso- 
lutely thrown away. 
Intel- That which is digested wholly, says Coleridge, and 

fj^^f / P'^^*- *^^ which is assimilated and part rejected, is food, 
digestion. That which is digested wholly and the whole of which is 
partly assimilated and partly not is medicine. That which 
is digested but not assimilated vs, poison. That which is 
neither digested nor assimilated is mere obstruction. 

This is as true in the spiritual and intellectual as in 
the physical organism. What is learned in such a way 
that is neither digested nor assimilated is not food at 
all, it is mere obstruction, there is no nourishment in it ; 



PunisJinicnts ^y 



its presence disturbs or deranges other healthy functions ; 
it does nothing to affect character or to sustain life. 

Now in the light of these general reflections, wh^tPuHish- 
have we to say of punishments ? They affect conduct '"'''^ ^' 
certainly. But conduct does not make character unless 
our acts are habitual, unless it comes to pass that certain 
forms of action become by degrees more natural to 
us, so to speak, than others. Single isolated acts have 
little or no influence on the character. It is the repeated 
act — the often repeated act, the act so often repeated 
that it becomes almost automatic and spontaneous, 
which alone can be said to shape the future life of the 
man, and possibly to be reproduced in his posterity. We 
may well think of this if we try to inflict punishment. 
It may deter, it undoubtedly does deter from certain 
specific acts, so long as the fear of the punishment or 
the watchfulness of the person who inflicts it lasts. But 
the moment these are withdrawn, the motive for doing or 
refraining from doing a given act disappears; and it is 
found that the punishment has never touched the inner 
life of the pupil at all ; it has done nothing to affect 
the character which will be assumed and perpetuated in 
future. Nay, perhaps it has done something. It may 
have roused a spirit of rebellion and reaction, in conse- 
quence of which the kind of act which you have checked 
and punished will become more habitual than before. 

And what are we to say of the moral precepts, those Moral 
broad general aphorisms about moral conduct, which fill /''^^^'/''•^• 
so large a space in all good books, especially those good 
books that are written for children? To us who are 
grown people, who have had some experience of life, 
much of the experience thus gathered up by careful 
induction assumes the form of general propositions, 
maxims, rules of conduct. But of what avail are these 



88 The Evolution of Character 

to a little child? He has had none of this experience. 
He is concerned at present with specific acts, hut large 
generalizations about principles of conduct do not affect 
him. Did you ever hear of a boy who was deterred 
from (juarrelling because he had written " Cancel ani- 
mosities " twenty times in his copy-book? Do you 
think Laertes, in his green youth, was much impressed 
with the aphorisms of his pedantic old father, 

Give thy thoughts no tongue, 

Nor any unprojiortiuncd thought, his act? 

Do you think that any child in a vSunday School 
becomes reverent and obedient because he learns by 
heart a formula enjoining him to "order himself lowly 
and reverently before his betters"? The truth is that 
these universal maxims presuppose a riper age, and a 
larger experience, before they can be felt to have any 
validity, nay, before they have any meaning. 'I'o a few 
prematurely thoughtful children such maxims may be 
intelligible and useful. Of an average child it may be 
affirmed that he knows something of individuals, and 
can understand something of his relations to them; but 
about humanity, about mankind as a whole, about the 
claims of society, he neither knows nor cares. Nor can 
he, as a rule, appreciate large universal rules of conduct or 
of human duty in any sense. I can think of only three 
conditions under which such general rules can influence 
When his character at all. Those who enjoin them may folKnv 
rules are ^^^'^^^^ ^'P ^^Y ^^'^'^"' ^^ w^atchhil supervision of specific acts, 
operative, and l)y such guarded arrangements for preventing wrong- 
doing, that in time it may become easier for the scholar 
* to obey than to disobey, and the general law of conduct 
may fix itself on your pupil, not because he has learned 
it by heart, but because he has practised it by heart. 
There is a second condition on which it is possible that 



General Maxims often inoperative 89 

a universal rule or precept may become operative. It is 
that in expressing it you have so appealed to the intel- 
ligence and the conscience of the child, so enabled him 
to see its meaning or its direct application, that he 
recognizes its force, admires it, sympathizes with your 
motive in inculcating it, and makes up his mind that 
it will be well with him if through life he obeys it. 
The third possible condition under which a general 
maxim can be of use is that he who enforces it inspires 
so much affection and reverence, that without under- 
standing it fully or seeing its bearing on conduct, the 
pupil accepts it as a matter of course. This is the sort 
of influence which leads a man to say in after life, " Ah, 
I remember my dear old master used to tell us, ' If you 
do not want to be known to do a thing, don't do it.' " 
So a general maxim of conduct may become impressed 
on a child by challenging his intelligence, his affection, 
or his experience. But if it comes to him in none of 
these three ways, if it is only urged on him by authority, 
committed to memory, and enforced as an abstract ethical 
truth, it simply comes to nothing. It may be very satis- 
factory to you to hear it accurately recited or to see it 
written down in a copy-book. But it has no vital force, 
no value, and for the child at the beginning of life, 
scarcely any interest or meaning. 

The bright, audacious Shelley astonished his father 
at nineteen by some startling expressions of heterodox 
opinion and by shewing himself in flat rebellion against 
all the conventional beliefs and usages in which he had 
been brought up. His father insisted on making Percy 
read Paley's Evidences. When young Coleridge, in the 
fervour of his young republicanism, had just read Voltaire's 
Philosophical Dietionary, and declared himself converted, 
his schoolmaster, old Bowyer of Christ's Hospital, called 



90 



TJie Evohition of Character 



him into his private room and gave him a thrashing.^ 
Can anyone suppose for a moment that in either case 
the boy was tamed or convinced? The remedy was 
utterly unadapted to the disorder. It was neither 
nourishing nor medicinal. It was rejected. It left the 
patient heated, irritated, and rebellious, farther from 
orthodoxy than ever. 
Didactic Didactic and formal moral teaching is often strangely 

teaching, overvalued. To those who are unskilled in the art of 
communicating truth to young children, it appears the 
most obvious and easy form of instruction. Nothing 
seems simpler than to set a lesson containing precepts or 
religious truths to be learned by heart. Yet it is often 
the least effective of expedients. For after all, acqui- 
escence is not knowledge. It is not even opinion, still 
less does it deserve to be called faith. We may assent 
to any number of propositions, without being in the least 
degree the wiser or better for such assent, if they have 
not secured the adhesion of the intellect or of the moral 
sympathies. And such adhesion can only be secured 
when the proposition is brought into consciousness by 
clear statement, and by an effort to understand it. 
"Truths," says Coleridge, "of all others the most awful 
and interesting are too often considered as so true that 
they lose all the power of truth, and lie bedridden in the 
dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most despised 
and exploded errors." ^ 
Experi- In seeking to ascertain for ourselves what forms 

etices of f. . . ,,..,. , 

childhood. °^ mstruction and disciphne are really operative upon 
the life of a pupil and carry in them the germs of 
future growth ; and on the other hand what teaching 
it is that touches only the shell and husk of his being. 



■'• Biographia Litei'aria. 

2 Aids to Kcjlectioii, Aphorism I. 



Experiences of Childhood 91 

and never penetrates to the sources of life at all, we 
do well to recur more often than we do to our own 
experience as learners. Those of you who are young 
teachers are not so far removed from childhood as to 
have lost the power to do this. Older teachers must 
supply the lapse of memory by imagination and experi- 
ence. But in one way or another we should seek to 
put ourselves in the attitude of mind which is occupied 
by our pupils, to hear lessons with their ears and to see 
illustrations with their eyes. The elementary teacher is 
going, let us say, to give a lesson on some new fact 
in Natural History. He gets together his whole for- 
midable apparatus of black-board, pictures, diagrams, 
and specimens. But the testing question for him is not 
— " How does the sketch of this lesson look in my notes 
or on the board? How will the lesson display my 
powers to the best advantage? In what light will it 
appear in the eyes of the head master, the inspector, or 
the adult critic?" but "What should I have thought of 
this lesson when I was a child sitting on that bench? 
How would it have impressed me ? How should I have 
liked it? How much of it should I have remembered 
or cared to remember?" In like manner, it may be, 
he is about to select a piece of poetry for recitation. He 
is tempted to think first of its length, the appropriateness 
of its moral, the ease with which it may be explained, 
the sort of exercise it will give in elocution and in taste. 
But it will be well also to put the question, " How far 
should I have been stimulated and enriched if, at that 
age, I had learned the same verses? Would they have 
remained in my memory now? Should I, at any time 
in the interval, have found my leisure brightened or my 
thoughts raised by remembering them?" That is a very 
valuable test. Understand as well as you can contrive to 



92 TJie Evolution of Character 

do, the learner's point of view, and criticise yourself from 
that stand-point. Ah ! if preacher and congregation, if 
teacher and class could change places now and then, and 
if those who sit before us could only frankly tell us what 
they are thinking of us and our teaching, what interesting 
revelations we should obtain ! Perchance that look of 
dumb bewilderment and vacuity with which we sometimes 
find ourselves confronted, would, were it to shape itself 
into articulate utterance, be fain to find expression in 
some such words, as those once used with a very diff'erent 
meaning : " Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the 
well is deep." 
7'he laiv Qne of the most important of the laws revealed 

,-J,!l^!'Z^ in recent biological researches is that of environment. 

; oii/Hl III. o 

New variations and new species of plants and animals 
are evolved, and the nature of their development is largely 
• — though not wholly — determined by the conditions in 
which they live. Soil, light, climate, the nearness or 
distance from other bodies, affect the growth of plants.^ 
The same conditions and many others affect that of 
animals, — whether there is an abundance or a scarcity 
of food within reach, whether the animal is in a wild or 

1 " The process of modification has effected and is effecting decided 
changes in all organisms subject to modifying influences. In succes- 
sive generations these changes continue until ultimately the new 
conditions become the natural ones. In cultivated plants, domes- 
ticated animals, and in the several races of men such alterations have 
taken place. The degrees of difference so produced are often, as in 
dogs, greater than those on which distinctions of species are in other 
cases founded. The changes daily taking place in ourselves, the 
facility that attends long practice, and the loss of aptitude that 
begins when practice ceases, the strengthening of passions habitually 
gratified, and the weakening of those habitually curbed, the develop- 
ment of every faculty — bodily, moral, or inttllectual — according to 
the use made of it, are all explicable on this same principle." — 
Edward Clodd, Pioneers of Evolution, p. 1 1 2. 



TJic Law of environment 93 

domesticated state, whether its habits are soHtary or 
gregarious, — all these are circumstances which have to 
be regarded in explaining the evolution of new character- 
istics or of new species. And it is manifest that similar 
considerations cannot be absent wl"ken we are trying to 
trace the development of human institutions or of human 
character. In past ages, one of the problems of pro- 
foundest interest has always been, " How far are man's 
character and destiny controlled by circumstances, and 
how far is it in his power to control them? " The Greek 
tragedians were continually trying to present this problem 
in new lights, and to invite their countrymen to reflect 
on it. You have an Orestes or an GLdipus impelled by 
a pitiless Fate to the commission of crimes which they 
abhorred, or a Prometheus enduring unmerited sufferings 
with heroic dignity, even though he knows that the man 
who is to deliver him is not yet born; and all the while 
the gods looking down with sublime impassiveness, or 
with a pity near akin to contempt. The Greek hero has 
no alternative. He must either contend vainly against a 
remorseless fate, or must submit and shew the world 

How sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong. 

Modern science and experience are presenting to us T/ie con- 
the same problem in a different form. Mr Buckle has ''''^''';'' "^^ 

^ our ijjcas 

taken pains to demonstrate the uniformity of human detcrmi- 
action under L(iven conditions. He shews you that tlie "'/'^^^ "/ 
number of murders, of suicides, even the proportion of 
accidents and follies, is curiously unvarying from year to 
year. He leaves on you the impression that, granted a 
certain set of conditions, man's action can pretty well 
be predicted, in flict that he cannot do otherwise than 
he does. Another philosopher expounds the doctrine 
of heredity, and shews how some people come into the 



94 TJie Evolution of Character 

world weighted with the effect of the folUes and vices of 
their ancestors, and practically unable to fight the battle 
of life on fair terms with their competitors. Thus the 
conditions of man and of his environment come to be 
the substitute for the cruel Fate or Nemesis of Greek 
tragedy ; and even as the Athenian was brought to the 
conviction that it was vain to war against the decrees of 
the high gods, so the man of the nineteenth century is 
half persuaded by the sociologists to believe that his life 
and character are moulded by conditions which he did 
not make, that he, too, is the sport of Fate and of 
circumstance, and has no responsibility for either. At 
first sight this is the most disheartening of all conclusions. 
One is fain to rebel against it and to say, " I came into the 
world without my own consent. I did not choose my 
parents. I find myself encompassed by influences which 
are very unfavourable to the development of what is best 
in me, which are shaping me into something I do not 
approve and have not desired. I cannot fight against 
these conditions. I succumb to them, and must leave 
the responsibiHty to be borne elsewhere." 
How far Second thoughts, however, will go far to modify these 

these con- ^\^v^\Y\\.mQ, conclusions. Grant that we and our children 

ditions are r o 

alterable are the products to a large extent of the conditions under 
at ivill. ^vhich we live. It is at least in our power to alter those 
conditions. Say that the amount of theft and of drunken- 
ness is uniform under the existing social arrangements. 
Everything you do to make those arrangements better, 
by diminishing temptation, by increased vigilance in de- 
tecting crime, — every hbrary you open, every good book 
you cheapen, every new form of innocent outlet you can 
find for the natural activity and restlessness which, in the 
absence of innocent exercise, takes the form of turbulence 
or vice, is a new factor in the problem, and makes the 



The Moral AtviospJicre of a School 95 

conditions of the life of the next generation more favour- 
able tlian those of the present. Herein He the solace and 
the inspiration of all true philanthropists. The character 
of our successors will be, let us admit, determined not so 
much by our wishes, nor by our exhortations. It will be 
largely the resultant of all the powers and tendencies which 
will make up the conditions of their environment. Then 
let us improve those conditions. That at least is in our 
power to do to some extent, for society and for ourselves. 
Who can tell what effect the multiplication of good schools 
will have on the next generation? A young man finds 
himself placed by the accident of his birth in the midst 
of uncongenial surroundings. He cannot wholly escape 
from them ; but he can do something to alter them for 
the better. He attaches himself to a society in which 
there is a higher tone of thinking and of acting than his 
own. He joins a library, a reading party, or a field 
naturalist's club. By any one of these acts he does in 
fact place himself in a new environment, and gives some 
of his better faculties a new chance for development. 

And what is true of a teacher's own life is true in The moral 

regar/i to the life of a school. Given a place of instruc- ^^'"^^P'^'f 
=• _ i of a sc/iool. 

tion in which there is an unskilled and unobservant 
discipline, and you may safely predict that there will be 
a curious uniformity in the percentage of rebellious and 
even of vicious acts. But alter the conditions. Let the 
new teacher be wary and watchful, let him be in sympathy 
with every effort to do right ; let him make carefully 
considered plans and resolutely adhere to them, and the 
phenomena will be altered and the proportion of wrong 
acts will steadily diminish. The character of pui)ils is 
unconsciously moulded by the sort of moral atmosphere 
which is breathed in a school. We inspectors and 
educational critics are sometimes laughed at for talking 



96 TJie Evolution of Character 



of the tone of a school. This is, we are told, an in- 
tangible entity, incapable of measurement, not to be set 
down in schedules or reports. That is very true. But 
the tone of a school is something very real nevertheless. 
It means, as I understand it, the prevaiHng spirit of the 
place, its cheerfulness, the mutual helpfulness of its 
members, its love of work, its orderly freedom, its well- 
directed ambition, its scorn of meanness or subterfuge ; 
the public opinion of an organized body of fellow- 
workers, all in their several degrees helping one another 
to fulfil the highest purposes of a school. The scholar 
who enters a community favourably conditioned in these 
respects, and who inhales its atmosphere, is in a training 
school of virtue and of self-knowledge, whatever may 
happen to be the subjects taught or professed in it. 
Years hence the man may indeed look back and say, 
I could not recall any lesson I learned in that school 
in the form in which I learned it; but I shall all my 
life feel grateful for the bright and encouraging example 
of the master, for the strenuous and honest spirit in 
which work was done, for the intellectual stimulus which 
the place afforded, for the high ideal of duty and of 
honour which dominated all its work. Let those of us 
who are teachers, now and then criticise ourselves and 
our schools from this point of view. Let us ask our- 
selves not only. What do these pupils learn, how do they 
succeed in examinations, what triumphs do they win? 
but also. What sort of influences are those which, though 
they work unconsciously, make the moral environment of 
the learner, and will determine his future growth ? 
Injiiicnce Nor will a true teacher ever lose sight of the fact 
''/^^f , that the most important of the factors that make up 

teacher s , . , • • ^ ■ ^c '-r-u 

personal this moral and spiritual environment is himselt. ihe 
character, gchool is influenced not only by what he says and does. 



Natural Selection 97 



but by what he is, by his tastes, his preferences, his 
bearing, his courtesy, the breadth of his sympathy, the 
largeness and fuhiess of his hfe. Boys do not respect 
their master's attainments unless they are sure that he 
knows a great deal more than he undertakes to teach. 
These things are not talked about in a school, but they 
are felt. So his first duty is to cultivate himself, to give 
full play to all that is best and worthiest in his character, 
before he can hope to cultivate others and bring out 
what is best and worthiest in them. 

And this reminds us of what is, after all, the cardinal Natural 
article in the Darwinian hypothesis — the doctrine of ■^'^^^'^'^'"" 
natural selection. Animals and plants are indeed in- 
fluenced by surrounding conditions ; but from among 
those conditions there is in almost every organism a 
selective power ; so that the nature of the growth is more 
influenced by some of those conditions than by others. 
A flower turns towards the light, a climbing plant stretches 
forth its tendrils in the direction in which strength and 
sustenance can be had. The organs of many an animal 
become in successive generations better and better 
adapted to its wants, by means of the selection from 
surrounding conditions of those best fitted for its own 
needs and development. Slight variations of form, of 
structure, or of colour occur from time to time ; those of 
them which are most suitable and useful are accumulated 
and transmitted to successive generations ; and it is found 
that those organisms which have been thus developed 
and improved have a better chance than others of 
survival after the struggle for existence. Sometimes this 
natural selection operates in a mysterious way, almost 
automatically nnd without conscious volition at all. The 
woodpecker or the mistletoe undergoes variations by 
which its structure is gradually adapted to the various 
H 



98 The Evolution of Character 

circumstances of its existence. In regard to the plumage 
of birds, the perpetuation of particular colours is due to 
something more like conscious preference, and is ex- 
plained by Darwin's well-known phrase, sexual selection. 
But in the case of those organisms which are useful to 
man, there has often been intentional selection. The 
breed of race-horses has been improved from time to 
time by the selection of the fleetest. The gardener finds 
out the character of the soil and other conditions best 
fitted to rear plants possessing the peculiar qualities 
which have the highest commercial value. He wants, for 
example, to find which varieties of peach will best resist 
mildew ; what kinds of vine culture are best fitted to with- 
stand the deadly attack of the phylloxera, and with this 
view he tries various experiments in cross-fertilization 
and in culture. Darwin describes one very significant 
experiment tried with much success at the time of the 
prevalence of the potato disease. A farmer reared a 
great number of seedlings, exposed them all to infection, 
observed the effect, then ruthlessly destroyed all that 
suffered, saved those which succeeded best in resisting 
the infection, and then repeated the process. In this 
way, he believed it possible to rear a new variety 
of this vegetable which w^ould resist the attacks of 
disease more successfully than any variety previously 
known. 

Now to the innumerable phenomena of this kind in 
the world of the naturalist, is there anything analogous 
in the world with which you and I are chiefly concerned 
— the world of human experience and training? Much 
every way. It is certain that man's powers and faculties 
may, by due cultivation, be strengthened and transmitted 
to posterity. It is certain also that of the numerous 
conditions and circumstances that encompass a human 



Conscious selection of Jit conditions 99 

life, some are fovoiirable and some are unfavourable to 
the development of what is best in it ; and that it is 
possible by the selection of what is favourable and the 
rejection of what is unfavourable, a people, a nation, a 
race, a single being may gradually improve. But what is 
more important than all, man is, so far as we know, the 
only being in the universe that knows anything of this 
law, or is able consciously to use his power of selection 
with a distinct moral purpose. I say "so far as we 
kaow," for it is right to be guarded here against un- 
verified assumptions. As Sydney Smith once said, " The 
lower animals are at a disadvantage, since they have no 
lecturers to discourse on our faculties." I wish they had. 
It would be worth something if we could have only five 
;^iinutes' insight into the interior of a dog's mind, and 
^arn what view he takes of us, and of the universe. 
jBut in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we are at 
liberty to say that to man alone is it given to use the law 
of natural selection with a real forecast of its meaning 
and tendency, and that while with the lower animals 
there is the struggle for mere existence, it is given only 
to him to struggle intentionally after a higher and better 
existence both for himself and for posterity. 

Let us view the bearing of these combinations on the Conscious 

development of human character, and especially on o\\x^,i^^'^^J 

' . the Jilt est 

own efforts after self-improvement. I speak in the presence conditions. 

of some young teachers, who have very recently taken 

upon themselves the perilous responsibility of managing 

their own life and fashioning their career. Well, you find 

yourself surrounded by a variety of conditions, and you 

know that some of them are favourable and that some are 

hostile to the development in you of that character which . 

you wish to form. Without entering into the ancient 

and thorny controversy about the frecMJoni of the will. 



lOO TJie Evolution of Character 

everyone knows that it is in his power to choose the good 
and to refuse the evil. " See," said Moses, " I have set 
before you this day hfe and good, and death and evil. 
Therefore choose life, that ye may live." And this is as 
true now as in the patriarchal days. You are not bound 
to drift along in life, succumbing merely to the strongest 
and nearest of these conditions. It is at least in your 
power to choose by which of these you mean to be most 
influenced, and which of them it will be best to resist. 
You have access to many books. You will not read 
them all. But you know well that there are some 
books from the perusal of which you rise refreshed and 
strengthened, with higher aims and purer resolutions ; 
and there are others, from which you rise with a sense 
that you have been in a stifling, heated, and unwhole- 
some atmosphere, and which leave you with weakened 
faculties or a lower ideal of life. You are surrounded 
by acquaintances and associations. They are not of 
your making. You are not responsible for this environ- 
ment. But you are responsible for the selection you 
make. Among those with whom you are thrown into 
contact, there are some whose influence you feel to be help- 
ful and ennobling ; in whose presence your best qualities 
are called out into exercise. There are others from whom 
you get no help, and in whose presence there is noth-, 
ing to encourage your highest aspirations or your most 
strenuous efforts. It is by deliberately stretching forth 
the tendrils, so to speak, of your own nature, by cHnging 
to the best of what is within your reach, and shrinking 
from that which is worst, that you are able, as the Bible 
says, to " go from strength to strength " ; and to make 
each step in life a new point of departure for your social 
and spiritual improvement. It is a trite thing to remind 
you of Shakespeare's well-worn comparison of the world 



Degciie7'atioii i o i 



to a stage, and ourselves, the men and women in it, to 
the players. But I do it for the purpose of quoting to 
you a remark of George Eliot which is not trite, but 
which seems to me to have a profound meaning. " How 
happy," she says, " is that man who is called on to play 
his part in the presence of an audience which habitually 
demands his best." ^ Now among the surrounding con- 
ditions which determine the growth of a character, one 
of the most potent is the character of the audience before 
which our work is done. Some of us are compelled to 
do our work under the fierce light of public criticism — 
let us be thankful if it is so — but many others live and 
move in the midst of a sheltered and uncritical community. 
It is one of the special dangers of a teacher's calling that 
many hours of every day are necessarily passed by him 
in the presence of a young audience, which not only does 
not demand from him his best, but will often be very well 
content with his worst. We are not in this respect the 
masters of our own circumstances. But within certain 
limits, it is in our power to choose the witnesses of our 
own work ; and unless some part of that work at least 
is performed under the eye of those who challenge the 
exercise of our best and highest powers, we may be sure 
that those powers will either be imperfectly exercised or 
not exercised at all. 

For there is in Nature a law of degeneration working Z><'^^;/- 
side by side with the law of development. An organ or^^^^'^''* 
a faculty may, by constant exercise, be strengthened and 
perpetuated ; or by continuous neglect and disuse it may 
in time perish altogether. If you abstain for a time from 
the exercise of any power you possess, you find ere long 
that this power is well nigh incapable of exercise. There 
are in the human organism, as in that of many inferior 

^ I^liddletnanJi. 



1 03 The Evolution of Character 

creatures, traces and survivals of organs once active, but 
now existing only in a rudimentary state. I can, e.g., by 
an effort of will, move my eyelids and the skin of my 
forehead ; but I cannot in hke manner twitch or move 
the skin of the scalp at the back of my head. Yet there 
are traces of a muscular apparatus — \he pannicu/us car- 
77osi(s — by which other parts of the skin were voluntarily 
moveable, and probably were moved by some remote 
ancestor of mine. For centuries, however, my fore- 
fathers have failed to make use of this apparatus, and 
now it is practically dead. I could not bring it into 
play if I would. 
Umise'i ^^^^^ there is much that is analogous to this in the 

faculties, history of our own minds, and in the mental and spiritual 
phenomena around us. We sit down to read a novel 
or a newspaper. The eye glances hastily down the page. 
All that we want to gain we acquire in the most cursory 
way and without any consciousness of effort. Let us 
suppose we do this for a few days together, and that then 
we try to take in hand a book which demands real 
intellectual exertion — say Sir William Hamilton's Dis- 
sertations or John Stuart Mill's Political Economy. The 
eye traverses the page at the same rate as before, and we 
find at the end that we have gained no idea whatever. 
We have to brace our minds to a real effort of attention, 
and to begin again. We are startled to discover that the 
power of concentrating the whole of our mental forces 
on one subject at a time, and of following the train of a 
difficult piece of argument seems for the time to have 
departed from us. At any rate we know well that it has 
been enfeebled for want of exercise, and that if we go 
on much longer reading nothing but what is easy and 
agreeable, that power will perish altogether, beyond 
reach of recovery. Nature will not be trifled with. She 



Pivgrcssioji or retrogression 103 

gives us powers and faculties ; but she does not undertake 
to keep them bright and vigorous and always fit for use. 
An unused faculty becomes in time an unusable faculty. 
So the practical conclusion for all those who care about 
the regulation of their own minds is, that even in miscel- 
laneous reading there should be some subject or some 
book which challenges the employment of all the best 
powers, and forces the reader to bring his whole strength 
to bear in understanding it. Otherwise he will be doing 
injustice to his own faculties and slowly but surely 
reducing them to the rank of rudimentary organs in the 
animal structure, interesting but wholly worthless sur- 
vivals of what once might have been potent instruments, 
but will never be so again. 

In the natural world, it must be remembered, evolution Progres- 
does not always imply progress towards perfection. ^"^ r7tro- 
may mean progress in the other direction. There is, 2i?,gression. 
Mr Huxley once said, " a constant re-adjustment of the 
organism in adaptation to new conditions ; but it depends 
on the nature of those conditions, whether the direction 
taken by those modifications is upward or downward. 
Retrogressive change is quite as possible as progressive 
change." And this is true and still more manifest in the 
moral world. Hence every power with which teachers 
are concerned, as a part of the organic equipment of 
their pupils, is constantly undergoing change in the 
direction either of development or deterioration. The 
process of evolution in a human character never stops. 
Attention, memory, observation and reasoning power, 
reverence, affection, aspiration after better things — all 
the attributes which you want to see exemplified in the 
life of your pupils, are day by day either enfeebled or 
strengthened by what happens in your school. Vou 
have, it may be, nothing in your course of studies which 



I04 The Ev oh it ion of C/ia leader 

specially cultivates observation — the art of seeing care- 
fully, noting resemblances and differences, and describing 
afterwards with perfect accuracy what has been seen. 
For all the higher purposes of education, it matters very 
Httle what kind of natural objects are selected with a 
view to the proper exercise of this faculty. Flowers in a 
field, trees in a forest, pictures in a gallery, statues in 
a cathedral, machines in a factory, or shop windows in 
High Street, would all serve the purpose, if only the 
power of seeing clearly, and of knowing well what had 
and what had not been seen, were once encouraged. But 
a school course which includes no one item designed 
specially to cultivate this one faculty, is seriously deficient 
as a means of training, however much Latin or mathe- 
matics or other useful knowledge has been gained. The 
boy brought up in such a school suffers from the slow 
deterioration of his observant faculty, and becomes a less 
accurate and trustworthy person for the rest of his life. 

It is not a little curious to notice that the life of 
Darwin himself illustrates the way in which certain 
mental powers and aptitudes degenerate and become 
useless. In early life he enjoyed poetry, and read 
Thomson, Byron, Scott and Shelley with genuine dehght, 
but the taste for poetry gradually disappeared. He 
was once fond of Shakespeare, especially of the historical 
plays, but in his old age he found the same plays *' so 
intolerably dull that they nauseated him." Long after, 
he mourned over these limitations and of the loss which 
he had thus sustained : 

" This curious and lamentable loss of the higher Dssthetic tastes 
is all the odder, as books on history, biographies and travels 
(independently of any scientific facts they may contain) and essays 
on all sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever they did. My 
mind seems to have become a machine for grinding general laws out 



TJic law of divergence 105 

i)f large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the 
atn phy of thai jiart of the brain alone on which the higher tastes 
depend, I cannot conceive. iV man with a mind more highly 
organized or better constituted than mine would not, I suppose, 
have tlius suffered, ami if I had to live my life again 1 would have 
"made a rule to read some poetry, and listen to some music at least 
once every week, for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied 
would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these 
tastes is a loss of happiness and may possibly be injurious to the 
intellect and more probably to the moral character by enfeebling 
the emotional part of our nature." ^ 

There are no facts more familiar to the student of The law of 
evolution than those which are grouped together bv ^^^"'-'-'^'S'^^^'^^ 

T^ • , , , ,, , , V ,. in planls 

Darwm under what he calls the law of divergence, kandani- 
plot of land will yield a greater weight if cropped with '"^^^^^ 
several species of grass than with one or two species 
only. " An organism becomes more perfect and more 
fitted to survive, when by division of labour the different 
functions of life are performed by different organs. In 
the same way a species becomes more efficient and 
better able to survive, when different sections of the 
species become differentiated so as to fulfil different 
functions. * * * The more diversified the descendants 
from any one species become in structure, constitution 
and habit, by so much will they be better enabled to 
seize on many and widely diversified places in the polity 
of nature, and so be enabled to increase in numbers." 
" In the general economy of any land, the more widely 
and perfectly the animals are diversified for different 
habits of life, so will a greater number of individuals be 
capable of supporting themselves. A set of animals 
with their organization but little diversified could hardly 
compete with a set more perfectly diversified in structure. 

^ Darwin'' s Life and Letters. Autobiographical Chapter. 



social in 
sH tut ions, 



1 06 T/ic Evolution of Character 

It may be doubted, for instance, whether the AustraHan 
marsupials, which are divided into groups differing but 
Httle from each other, and feebly representing our car- 
nivorous ruminant and rodent mammals, can success- 
fully compete with these well-developed orders. In the 
Australian mammals we see the process of diversification 
in an early and incomplete stage of development." ^ 
and in In this respect the history of the human race has 

closely resembled that of animals and plants. " During 
the period in which the earth has been peopled, the 
human organism has grown more heterogeneous among 
the civilized natives of the species, and the species as a 
whole has been made more heterogeneous by the multi- 
plication of races and the differentiation of these races 
from each other." We may see this in comparing 
primitive and savage races with those which are more 
civihzed. In the former, life is very monotonous. The 
men hunt and kill, they build huts all of one pattern, 
the women perform certain household duties, one day is 
like another ; one family like another. " Each portion 
of the community performs the same duties with every 
other portion, much as each slice of the polyp's body is 
ahke stomach, muscle, skin and lungs. Even the chiefs, 
in whom a tendency towards separateness of function 
first appears, still retain their similarity to the rest in 
economic respects. The next stage is distinguished by 
a segregation of these social units into a few distinct 
classes — warriors, priests, or slaves. A farther advance 
is seen in the sundering of the labourers into different 
castes having special occupations, as among the Hindoos. 
From these inferior types of society up to our own com- 
plicated and more perfect one, the progress has ever 

1 Origin of Species, p. 40. 



special aptitudes and tastes 107 



been of the same nature."^ Thus the whole tendency of 
civilization is towards diversity. New forms of human 
activity and ambition, new styles of building, new occu- 
pations, new interests, come into view. The world 
becomes enriched by the multiplication of new types of 
character, of taste, of employment, and of intellectual 
life. Variation begets variation. I do not think that 
Tennyson's is a true forecast when he says that 

" The individual withers and the world is more and more." 

Uniformity, whether of manners, of pursuits, of conduct, 
or of belief, is not the goal towards which we are tending ; 
nor, if we consider the matter rightly, is it the goal to- 
wards which we should wish to tend. The resources of 
Nature are not exhausted. In the moral and spiritual 
world, as in the world of outward nature, there is yet 
room for the development of new forms of beauty and of 
worthiness, far transcending any that have hitherto been 
known or even suspected. 

Now in view of this universal experience, let us and in in- 

consider for a moment what should be the attitude of a ^^j^^^^'^'^J 

c/iaracicr, 

teacher's mind towards the scholars who surround him 
and towards their varied idiosyncrasies and types of 
character. Is he to think it a high triumph to be able 
to say, " The boys in my school or in my house are all 
of one mind. They all take an interest in my pet 
subject ; they have all accepted my creed, they all have 
the cachet, the stamp of character which I admire most 
and which I have sought to impress upon them " ? 
That after all seems a poor sort of professional success. 
Subject of course to those general conditions as to 
instruction and discipline which apply to all scholars . 

1 Herbert Spencer, Social Statics. 



io8 The Evolution of Character 



alike, the more varied the tastes, the aptitudes, and 
even the opinions of those scholars are, the better. 
With the voice of all nature as his guide, the wise 
schoolmaster will be less anxious to enforce on his 
pupils the truth as he knows it than to encourage in 
them the habit of veracity, the spirit of honest enquiry ; 
the openness and fairness of mind which will enable 
them to recognize and to welcome all truth, whatever 
form it may take, and even to discover new truths, 
hitherto unsuspected. The measure of his success and 
of the degree in which as a teacher he is enriching the 
world and posterity, is the amount of variation in the 
types of ability and goodness which are developed 
among his pupils. No doubt it is very pleasant and 
flattering to the natural man to find one's own favourite 
ideal of excellence reproduced in one's scholars. But 
the best teachers are those who recognize the fact that 
there are other possible forms of excellence not con- 
templated in their own programme, and who rejoice to 
find any new and unexpected manifestations of the 
presence of exceptional powers. 
Special I know how difficult it is for a hard-worked teacher 

aptuudcs ^yjj^i^ ^ large class to concern himself much with the 
ana tasks. ^ 

special aptitudes of individual scholars. I know how 

convenient it is to find all our good scholars good in 

our own way ; and all our clever scholars clever in doing 

the work which we prescribe. Eccentricity, dreaminess, 

indulgence in fancies and in impossible ideals — these are 

apt to be troublesome phenomena to a teacher and to 

disturb his plans. But they may nevertheless be the 

very best part of the equipment of the young soul. They 

may perchance be indications of (lod-given power and 

genius, destined, in their after fulfilment, to effect great 

ends, which are beyond our ken. Let us not discourage 



How far they sJiould be eneou raged 109 

or repress them. One of the most affectionate parents 
of whom history has preserved a record once said, as 
you will remember, on an occasion on which her child 
seemed to be entering on a line of conduct which she 
had not planned for him, " Son, why hast thou thus dealt 
with us? behold, we have sought thee sorrowing." And 
tlien, as you know, came the grave and tender rebuke : 
*' How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I 
must be about my Father's business?" ''Our Father's 
business ! " What boundless possibilities of hope and 
energy, of high endeavour and noble achievement are 
comprised in that simple phrase ! How far its meaning 
transcends any conceivable programme of life which the 
wisest teacher or parent can devise ! 

The practical conclusion from these considerations Ho-v far 
is that we should try to give to each of the varied powers^ -^ 
and aptitudes of pupils — whether they have been already <r£?«;-a^W. 
disclosed or are yet latent — a good chance of healthy 
life. Herein lies the justification of the American plan 
of ' elective studies ' ; the multiplication of different 
alternative departments or triposes in which a degree 
may be taken in our English Universities ; and the 
establishment of modern sides in our public schools. 
They all help the differentiation of faculties and of 
types of character. To this end a teacher has first of all 
to take care that his ordinary course of instruction in- 
cludes for every scholar the rudiments of language, of 
mathematics, and of physical science, and some form of 
aesthetic or art culture ; then as soon as special prefer- 
ence reveals itself, he should encourage the adoi)tion — 
though not the exclusive adoption — of the chosen line. 
And for the rest, it is well to surround and supplement 
the school life with as many and varied encourage- 
ments to wholesome activity as possible. Athletic clubs, 



1 1 o TJie Evolution of Character 



dramatic and musical societies, field excursions, a maga- 
zine, a workshop, a discussion class, a French conversa- 
tion class, a sketching club — all these have their use; 
nearly all of them can easily be provided in a great 
boarding school, and some of them are found to work 
admirably in day schools of different grades. Of course 
no boy will be attracted to them all ; but every one of 
them is a legitimate outlet for mental activity, and for 
the taste and natural preference of some pupil or other. 
We need not take too much pains to determine these 
preferences nor feel disheartened when even our favourite 
pupils are attracted most to those particular objects 
which seem to us to be least valuable or appropriate. 
Let us take care only that all the forms of intellectual 
activity which are placed within the reach of a pupil are 
in themselves healthy and free from evil, and then let the 
law of natural selection operate freely. Congratulate 
yourself when you find him showing a genuine interest in 
anything. Despair only when you find him interested in 
nothing. For then indeed there must be some serious 
defect in your plans or your influence, and both need to 
be amended. We are safe at least in deducing this one 
conclusion from the teaching of natural history — that 
a human character, like other organisms, thrives best 
when exposed to variable conditions, for then only has it 
a chance of selecting those which are most favourable to 
the development of what is best and fittest in and for 
itself. 
Eccentric- But while urging on you the duty of encouraging 
^^y- varieties of character and leaving full scope for the 

exercise of special gifts I would not have you try to 
stimulate eccentricity or to aim at the production of 
abnormal phenomena among your scholars. Monstrosi- 
ties are nearly always sterile. A giant or a dwarf, or a 



The pro)}iise of tJic future ill 

two-headed nightingale, is an amusing — nay even an 
interesting phenomenon, but is in no wise an exemplar. 
An Admirable Crichton, a John Stuart Mill, who could 
read Plato at eight, a George Bidder, the calculating boy, 
who could mentally extract the cube root of a line of ten 
figures, are exceptional. They are not types which you 
desire to reproduce. Natui-a non facit saltiim. It is 
not by leaps and bounds, or by the occasional pro- 
duction of prodigies, that the progress of the race is to be 
attained. It is the healthy, well-nurtured boy, enabled 
and helped by means of circumstance and training to 
become a little better than his father, who is most likely 
in his time to become the parent of something better 
still. It is disputed among naturalists, whether acquired 
qualities are transmissible by inheritance. But whether 
this is so or not in the domain of organic nature, it is 
certainly true in the realm of the philosopher and the 
teacher, and in relation to human character. There is 
a sense in which all the scholars who come within the 
sphere of your influence may be regarded as your intel- 
lectual posterity. For they will certainly inherit from 
you, scarcely less than from their parents, attributes and 
tastes which, consciously or unconsciously, will go far to 
mould the character of those who come after them. 

And from this point of view the Darwinian hypo- Evolution 
thesis and all the facts which biologists have accumulated " ^^^PfP'^ 

° creed. 

are full of illimitable promise for the future of the race, 
and of encouragement to the true and earnest teacher. 
It may be that within the narrow span of history known 
to us we have seen few examples of new physical 
types, and no tendency to the production of new 
species of humanity. Yet the law of evolution is 
visibly at work in the spiritual, the social, and the 
mental world. New forms of cerebral development. 



-I 



1 1 2 The Evolution of Character 

new types of goodness, wiser forms of philanthropy, 
new triumphs over the material world, new insight into 
the moral world, greater knowledge of the forces which 
are at work around us, greater skill in the manipulation 
of these forces, broader sympathies, and truer conceptions 
of the brotherhood of man, — all these are possible. In 
all these respects, as in nature herself, progress tends 
towards differentiation, not to uniformity. And every 
earnest, faithful teacher in the world, however small 
the area of his work, however humble his sphere, is 
helping forward this beneficent process. 
The "Say not thou," says the Hebrew king, "what is the 

i'nlT^ cause that the former days were better than these? for 
future. thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this." In the 
twilight of history, the outlines of many ugly things 
become softened, and some good things become magni- 
fied by distance. Much of insolence and brutality may 
have been sheltered under the name of chivalry ; a help- 
less and ignorant acquiescence may easily have assumed 
the disguise of unity of faith. To an old man with a 
feeble imagination and strong self-love it seems natural 
that he should become a laudator iemporis acti; should 
be impatient of modern movements ; and underneath a 
general reluctance to change should conceal an unex- 
pressed conviction that a world in the shaping of which 
he can have no part, must necessarily be worse than its 
predecessor. But I believe that the most hopeful forecasts 
of the future are on the whole the truest. The wisest 
old men I know are not those who are ever moaning 
over the degeneracy of the age, but those who beheve 
that the world is visibly growing better ; and that in the 
midst of many discouragements, the general march of 
events is steadily towards righteousness and intelligence, 
towards moral and social amelioration. 



The proDiisc of tJie future 1 1 3 

In this respect Charles Darwin differed widely from 
Carlyle and Ruskin. Nothing has struck me more in brief 
conversation with all three of these eminent persons, 
than the contrast between the deep gloom and hopeless- 
ness with which Carlyle and Rnskin regarded the ten- 
dencies of our age and the cheerful hope and faith in the 
future which marked all Darwin's utterances. 

I know no more animating thought for a young man 
entering life and conscious of power than the reflection 
that he is not living for himself alone, but that all his 
own strivings after excellence and after a higher life are 
distinct even though humble contributions to the im- 
provement of the race to which he belongs. Every truth 
he learns, every sweet and graceful image wliich a i)oet 
may have helped him to harbour in his heart, every piece 
of good work he achieves, does something to alter for the 
better the conditions of life for those with whom he 
comes in contact. It helps to make the path of duty and 
of honourable ambition easier, safer, more accessible, 
more attractive to all who come after him. And per- 
chance it may enable some of them to say years hence, 
" We are grateful for his memory. This world is a better 
world for us to live in because he lived in it." 



LECTURE IV 

THE TRAINING OF THE REASON 

The art of thinking. Reason v. understanding. Two processes 
of arriving at truth. The deductive process, e.g. in geometry, 
and in arithmetic. An arithmetical example. Measures and mul- 
tiples. Tlie number nine. Oral demonstration of arithmetical 
principles. Inckictive reasonnig. IVactical work essential in 
the study of the physical sciences. Two neglected branches of 
physical encpiiry. Natural History; Astronomy. Meteorology. 
Object lessons. Inductive exercises in language. Examples of 
verbal analysis. Apposition. Induction the test of the value 
of educational methods. Child study. The three stages of 
progress in inductive science. The Kindergarten. Religious 
teaching to be largely judged by its results on character. The 
School a laboratory. Results. 

The art of I SUPPOSE it will be admitted that one of the main 
thinking, objects to be attained in education is to teach our pupils 
how to think — to think consecutively, closely, and effec- 
tively — and so to receive the discipline which will enable 
them to arrive at truth. This is a necessity au fond, it 
has relation not to this or that subject of instruction, but 
to all subjects alike. Man is a reasoning animal, and 
the one thing which distinguishes him from all other 
animals is his power to reflect and to reason. Kant has 
insisted strongly on the philosophical importance of the 
ReasflHv. ^|i,.ti,-,ction between Reason and Understanding, between 

under- ^ 

standing Vemuuft and Verstand. "The latter," says Coleridge, 

114 



Reason v. Understanding 1 1 5 



" suggests the materials of reasoning ; the former decides 
upon them. The Understanding can only say, This is or 
perhaps will be so ; the Reason says, It must be so." And 
it is to this " large discourse," this " looking before and 
rd'ter," the power of generalizing, of inferring, of tracing 
events and facts to their causes and their consequences 
that Shakespeare refers when he says that " the capability 
and God-like reason " must not be permitted to rust in 
us unused. Strictly speaking, there is in the lower 
animals no such faculty as reason, of which traces can 
be found ; but of understanding, that is, the knowledge 
of particular facts, and the power to profit by experi- 
ence and to adapt actions to circumstances, you have 
abundant evidence. In different degrees we find the 
presence of this lower faculty exhibited by dogs, horses, 
monkeys and other animals ; and moreover we discover 
from inductions suppHed by zoologists that the under- 
standing appears as a general rule in an inverse propor- 
tion to the instinct. We hear litde or nothing of the 
instinct of what Pope, by a poetic hyperbole, calls the 
' half-reasoning elephant,' and as little of the understand- 
ing of caterpillars and butterflies. But reason, in its 
true sense, appears to be denied equally to the highest 
and to the lowest of the brutes ; '' otherwise we should 
wholly attribute it to them ; and with it, therefore, self- 
consciousness, personality or moral being." ^ 

Leaving, however, all speculations as to the degree of 
mental power possessed by the lower animals, and the 
proper name which should be given to that power ; we 
are all agreed that the development of the thinking fiiculty 
in our pupils is one of our highest duties. Too many 
of our school lessons address themselves to the memory 

^ Coleridge, The /•'rie>iti, I. 208. 



Ii6 The Training of the Reason 

and the receptive power only. So long as lessons are 
thus restricted, we are dealing with the understanding 
— verstand only. The higher faculty — the reason, 
verminft, the power of advancing from one truth to 
another — claims its own special and appropriate culti- 
vation ; and demands fuller recognition in our school 
system. That men and women are richer, stronger, 
more fit to encounter the problems of life, and to fulfil 
its duties, in proportion to their power of orderly and 
accurate thinking, is a truism which we need not discuss, 
and which we may safely postulate as the basis of our 
present enquiry. 
Two pro- It is a familiar truth, that there are two distinct pro- 
cesses of ceg^es by which the mind advances from one acquisition 

arriving •' 

at truth, to another, and proceeds from the known to the un- 
known. They are the deductive or synthetic process and 
the inductive or analytical process. 

By the former of these we mean the starting from some 
general and accepted axiom or postulate, and the dis- 
covery, by means of syllogism or pure inference, of all 
the detailed facts and conclusions which may be logically 
deducible from it. By induction we mean the process of 
proceeding from the particular facts which observation 
and experience bring into cognizance, to the larger 
general truth which co-ordinates and explains them all. 
In short, the deductive method starts with general pro- 
positions and proceeds to investigate them, but the 
method of induction is an operation for discovering and 
proving general propositions. It is true that these two 
methods of procedure are not so sharply divided in 
practice as in philosophic theory. For the axiom or 
postulate with which the geometrician starts is itself the 
product of an induction from experience. That '' the 
whole is greater than its part," that '' things which are 



TJie deductive process 1 1 7 



equal to the same things are equal to one another," that 
" seven times four yields the same product as four times 
seven " are not recognizable as self-evident propositions 
until a little thought and experience have shewn them to 
he necessarily true. And such thought and experience 
are in their nature examples of the inductive process. 
Hut once let these and the like fundamental truths be 
accepted, whether they are dependent on pure intuition, 
or are general statements seen to be involved even in 
the very meaning of the terms employed, they are no 
longer open to discussion and may be safely used hence- 
forth as the legitimate bases of a deductive argument. 
They are so obviously trustworthy that they stand in no 
need of further verification from experience. 

Now the typical example of the deductive process 77^^ 
and of the methods by which the reasoning power ^-^'^"^^'^^ 
advances from one truth to another by its means, is ££^7;^' 
demonstrative geometry. Here the only hypotheses that geometry, 
can be taken for granted are distinctly and concisely 
stated at the outset ; and nothing else is permitted to 
be assumed. You are not at liberty to say of two lines 
that they are equal because if you measure them you find 
them to be so, or because the diagram before you shews 
plainly that they look so. I remember my old mathe- 
matical teacher Professor De Morgan used purposely to 
distort the diagrams out of all recognizable shape, before 
he set us to demonstrate a proposition. He did this on 
principle, because he would not have us rely in any way 
on the help of the eye, when the whole exercise was to 
be one of pure thought and logical inference. There is 
a story of a student who reading Geometry witli a tutor, 
and sorely puzzled with the 47th proposition, interrupted 
the lesson with the enquiry 'Was Euclid a good man?' 
* Oh yes, I believe so.' 'I mean was he an honourable, 



T 1 8 TJie Training of the Reason 

truthful man, who would not willingly deceive any one?' 
' I have no reason to doubt it.' ' Well then, don't you think 
we might take his word for this proposition?' Of course 
the absurdity of this story Hes in the fact that the result, 
the proved statement, has no value or interest in itself; 
and that the only use of the exercise is to be found in 
the process by which the result has been obtained. In 
that process, the student has been called on to follow a 
severe course of ratiocination, to shut out from his mind 
every irrelevant consideration, to proceed from one step 
to another by strictly scientific processes, and to believe 
nothing which he cannot prove. And these are ex- 
periences through which every one must go, if he would, 
in relation to any of the problems speculative or practical, 
which occur in life, understand well the difference between 
valid and invalid argument, between conclusions which are 
only plausible and those which are safe and trustworthy. 
and in I have in a former lecture in this place ^ expressed my 

arithr.ietic. opinion that intellectual discipline of this kind is in its 
own way just as valuable to scholars in the earlier as in 
the later stages of their training, and that even in the 
humblest schools the subject of arithmetic offers the best 
material for deductive exercise, and may be made to 
furnish training in the art of reasoning which relatively 
to the age of the pupil is fully as appropriate as exercise 
in the higher mathematics is to an older student. But 
one's voice is like that of one crying in the wilderness. 
In this country there is no practical recognition of the 
fact. Arithmetic is not treated as a branch of mathe- 
matics. We teach it as a contrivance for getting correct 
answers to problems and questions. Our mode of testing 
the results of arithmetical teaching is to set sums to be 
worked, and if the answer is right examiners do not 
1 Lectures on Teaching:. 



DcDioiistrativc aritJiuictic 119 

enquire too curiously as to the reasons of the methods 
employed, or as to the principles which those methods 
presuppose. Hence our methods of teaching are domi- 
nated by the methods of examiners, and the science of 
arithmetic is often unheeded in both. It is otherwise in 
France. There the humblest examination — that for the 
leaving certificate at the age of 12 or 13 at the end of 
the primary school course — requires not only the working 
out of problems, but a solution raisonnee. The notion 
that mathematical exercises have as their chief object 
the solution of problems is as little satisfying to the 
skilled teacher in a French elementary school as it is to 
a high wrangler. The rationale of arithmetical processes 
is to him a matter of more importance than with us. 

So at the risk of repeating an oft-told tale, I ask your An arith- 
leave further to illustrate the way in which even elementarv ""^^^'^'^^ 

•' ■ example. 

exercises in Arithmetic may be made subservient to the Measures 
training of young scholars in the art of reasoning. Take '^'"^ . 
the subject of measures and multiples. I purposely 
choose this, because there is nothing commercial or 
visibly useful and practical in it, but simply because of 
its suitableness as an intellectual exercise. You need 
not begin by giving rules ; but simply by describing the 
thing to be dealt with. Three is called a measure of 12, 
because a certain number of threes make 12; and 12 
for tills reason is called a multiple of 3. You call for 
other examples, 5 a measure of 20, 20 a multiple of 5, 
and you soon arrive at the proposition that if A is a 
measure of B, B in a. multiple of A. Tlien in succession, 
you elicit, through questions and through examples sup- 
plied by pupils, the following axioms in succession : — 

(i) That if one number measure another it 
must measure all multiples of that other. For if 3 is a 
measure of 6 it must be a measure of any number of sixes. 



120 The Training of tJie Reason 

(2) That if one number measure two others it 
must measure their sum. For if 5 be a measure of 20 
and also of 15 • it must be a measure of 35. 

(3) That if one number measure two others it 
must measure their difference. For if 6 be a measure of 48 
and also of 12, the difference between these two numbers 
must consist of a certain number of sixes. Hence 

(4) That if a number measure both divisor and 
dividend it must measure the remainder. For the 
remainder is the difference between the dividend and 
a multiple of the divisor. 

(5) If one number measure the divisor and re- 
mainder it must measure the dividend. For the dividend is 
the sum of the remainder and of a multiple of the divisor. 

With these truths before you, you next ask what is to 
be done when we want to find the Common Measure of 
two numbers, say 266 and 637. We do not know and 
cannot easily tell by simple inspection what is the g. c. m. 
or even whether they have a Common Measure or not. So 
we will make one the divisor and the other the dividend : 

266)637(2 

105)266(2 
210 

"56)105(1 
_56 

49)56(1 
49 
7)49(7 
49 

Proceeding step by step, we observe the number 
of which we are in search, if it exist, i.e. if 266 and 637 
have a Common Measure, must also be a c. m. of 266 and 
105 (Axiom 4). Apply the same test by making one of 



The niunbcr nine I2i 

these the dividend and the other the divisor, and it then 
appears successively that it must also be a cm. of 56 
and 49. But the number seven is found to fulfil this 
condition. Hence it is a measure of 266 and 637. 
But it is also the greatest c. m. P^or if there be a greater 
than 7 let it be .v. Then .v must be a measure also 
of 105, also of 56, also of 49, also of 7 itself, and this 
is plainly impossible. Wherefore the last divisor in such 
a series is always the Greatest Common Measure of the 
two numbers, y. e. d. 

Let us take one other example. In old books of The 
Arithmetic much is often said of the properties of the "'.''^"'"'^ 

^ ^ )iinc. 

number nine. There were rules for casting out nines, 
puzzles and conundrums were set inv^olving the use of 
that number, and learners came to regard it as having 
some mysterious and occult qualities, which might serve 
as a sort of " Whetstone of Witt," but otherwise were 
objects rather of curious than of practical enquiry. Now 
of course there is no mystery or enigma about the number 
nine at all. What seems to be exceptional about it arises 
from two facts, (i) That ours is a system of notation 
which has ten for its base, and (2) that 9 is one less than 
ten. And on investigation it is seen that if our arithmetic 
had, say an octary instead of a decimal base, every one 
of the peculiar properties of the number 9 would belong 
to the number 7, or if ours were a duodecimal system the 
property would belong to the number eleven ; because 
in each case the number would be one less than the 
number chosen as the base. Let us invite scholars to 
look at a line of figures taken at random : 

732,865. 
I ask would that number if tested prove to be 
divisible by nine? I do not know, but I add together the 
digits 7 -f 3 + 2 + 8 + 6 -|- 5, and I find they equal 31. 



122 TJie Training of tJic Reason 

Now 31 when divided by 9 would leave a remainder 4. 
So it is also true that the number itself if divided by 
9 leaves a remainder 4. We can test this statement by 
actual trial. For example, 

9 I 732865 

81429 + 4 

Why should this be? The result is seen to be a 
necessary conclusion from the fact that we have a decimal 
system. For take each figure in succession. The first 
means 700000, but looooo is made of 99,999 + i. If 
1 00000 were divided by 9, it would leave a remainder i. 
Therefore if 7 times 100000 were divided by 9 it would 
leave a remainder 7. In like manner 30000 which is 
represented by the next figure would if divided by 9 
leave a remainder 3, 2000 a remainder 2, 800 a remainder 
8, 60 a reniainder 6, and the 5 would remain undivided. 
Every digit in the whole number 732865 therefore 
represents a remainder after division by 9. Now if 
we add all these remainders together they make 31, 
and this number if divided by 9 leaves a remainder 4. 
Consequently the whole number if divided by 9 would 
leave the same remainder. Once seen in this way the 
interpretation of all the puzzles connected with this 
number becomes simple. Other applications of the 
same truth would soon become visible if the truth itself 
were once grasped. And many ingenious exercises might 
be devised both by teachers and pupils, so as to turn 
enquiries into the ' pro})erties ' of the number nine into 
a really intellectual discipline. 
,^'' So I counsel teachers when they have once given a 

stration demonstrative lesson of this or the like kind, and made 
of aruh- ^i-jgji- cri-ound sure by questioning, and by the right use 
principles, of examples furnished by their pupils, to call out one 



Oral demonstration 123 



scholar at a time and bid him lake the numbers, and go 
through the explanation in the i)resence of tiie class. It 
is not enough that he should be able to reproduce a 
written demonstration in an examination paper. What 
you want is to secure that close attention, that keen 
perception of the several steps of an argument, and that 
due continuity of thought, which is only to be tested 
orally. In luritin^ out a demonstration, there is room 
for delay, for after thoughts, for correction, possibly for 
the use of merely verbal memory. But it is only by 
challenging the scholar to stand up and reproduce your 
explanation in his own words, that you can secure the 
promptitude, the clearness of thought, and the stedfast 
concentration of the mental powers on the one subject in 
hand, which are necessary to make him a good reasoner ; 
and so get out of mathematical exercise, whether in an 
elementary or a higher school, all the advantage which 
such exercise is capable of giving. Nothing struck me 
so much in the American schools as the large extent to 
which the scholars are trained to the habit of telling in 
their own words, and in sentences of their own construc- 
tion, what they mean and what they know. This ie a 
discipline very insufficiently cultivated here. We in 
England are often content to get from our pupils 
answers to questions, often in single words; and to infer 
from certain marks of sympathy, from the way in which 
the scholars fill up the laciinic in our own sentences, that 
they are following us, and assimilating what we have 
taught. We get the pupil's assent to propositions, and 
arc apt to think that enough. But the true teacher 
knows that mere acquiescence is not knowledge. So 
in America the teacher generally insists on having the 
answers in whole sentences, and it is a common practice 
to send the scholars one by one to the continuous black- 



124 The Training of tJie Reason 

board which runs all round the class-room walls, and 
call on each to repeat in the presence of the class the 
demonstration of a theorem or the explanation of an 
arithmetical rule. At first, of course, it will be difficult 
to adopt this practice and it will consume a good deal 
of time. The pupils will be shy and awkward and 
unready. It is so much easier to sit in a desk and listen, 
and to make signs of assent than to face the class, and 
to draw on one's own resources. But once let the practice 
be recognized as part of the habitual discipline of the 
class it will become easier every time and will be found 
to have an excellent effect. It will not only assure you 
that what has been taught has been really learned, but 
also serve to quicken the attention and the intelligence 
of the Scholars, because they know that this form of 
test is likely to be applied to them at the end of the 
lesson. 
Inductive The Other great instrument in thinking and reasoning 
is the Iiiductive method, that of proceeding from the 
observation of particulars to the discovery and proof of 
general propositions. The processes by which this result 
is attained are (i) observing of facts, (2) recording the 
facts which have been observed, (3) grouping and co-ordi- 
nation, (4) suspension of judgment while the facts remain 
unverified, (5) experiment, (6) openness of mind to 
receive new evidence, (7) discrimination between rele- 
vant and irrelevant facts, (8) what Bacon in the New 
Atlantis calls " raising the result of former discoveries 
into greater observations, axioms and aphorisms " ; in 
other words, arriving at large general truths, these truths 
themselves being only held provisionally, since they may 
possibly be absorbed or superseded by larger generaliza- 
tions hereafter. 

All these mental operations come into play at every 



reasonius:. 



Collocatioi of facts y not inductions 125 

turn in our lives. Their value is most conspicuous in 
the pursuit of physical science, and no doubt it is in that 
region that the highest triumphs of the inductive method 
have been achieved. But we as teachers have also to 
think of the inductive method of study rather as genera- 
ting a certain habit of mind, and as calling forth powers 
which are applicable to our views of history and morals, 
to our judgments of books and of one another, and to 
much of the business and conduct of our daily life. And 
iu the formation of our own character and in fitting us to 
deal wisely with the problems that every day presents, 
it is of for more consequence that we should know how 
to use particular experience as a means of arriving at 
general truths, than that we should argue correctly from 
given premisses to correct conclusions. We go wrong 
more often by arriving too hastily at general assumptions, 
from insufficient data, than by reasoning illogically from 
data already ascertained. This being so, it behoves us 
to enquire whether the habits of mind brought into 
exercise by the inductive method may not be encouraged 
by ordinary school studies, and made operative on the 
formation of character even in the early years devoted 
to instruction. Is there not opportunity for strengthening 
the inductive powers in connexion with some of the 
ordinary school studies, as well as in the laboratory of the 
chemist or the electrician ? 

It is well to bear in mind that the mere grouping Grouping 
and collocation of a number of facts does not necessarily ^-^-^'^'^^ "^^ 

■' nccessarilv 

deserve the name of induction. I find on looking at the indiuiion. 
sheep in a field, that all of them have wool of a certain 
colour, and that the feet of all of them shew a divided 
formation. But this is merely a collective statement true 
of all the sheep under observation. There is generaliza- 
tion but no induction, for no light is thrown upon any- 



126 TJie Training of tJie Reason 

thing beyond the field itself. But if after larger obser- 
vation and experience, and some knowledge of animal 
anatomy and physiology, I arrive at the conclusion that 
all sheep have divided hoofs, I transcend the boundaries 
of my actual experience, I assume that there is a certain 
uniformity in Nature, and thus infer that what we know to 
be true in a particular restricted area, will be true in all 
cases under similar conditions, and that what may be 
asserted of the individual members of a class may be 
safely predicated of the whole class to which those 
members belong. An induction of this kind includes 
more than a description and explanation of certain facts. 
It extends farther than the phenomena actually observed. 
It gives a key to the interpretation of other facts in 
Natural History, and to the prediction of what will be 
found to be true under like conditions. Only in this 
way does induction become an instrument of reasoning, 
and a help to the attainment of yet unknown and 
undiscovered truth. *«■ 

Practical Intellectual exercise of this kind is specially and 

xvork es- y\^\^\^, provided in such studies as Natural History, 
sential in ■' ^ . -^ ' 

the study Physical Geography, Botany, and in each of the Physical 

^//''y-J^^'^^ Sciences. It would tire you to illustrate in detail the 

science. 

ways in which each of these studies offers opportunities 
to the learner for bringing his powers of observation, of 
comparison, of classification, and of generalization into 
1 lay. But in every one of them it is a mistake to suppose 
that the facts and the principles of the science are all 
lie wants. He should be made to take his own part in 
arriving at such facts and principles. The little child to 
whom you give a packet of various-coloured beads or 
l)apers, and who is told to match them and to sort them, 
has an early lesson in observing, and in comparing, and 
in classifying. The older learner who is told to dissect 



Practical ivork in science 127 

a flower, and to set apart the pistil, the stamens, the 
corolla and the seed vessels, and to discover how many 
of the organs in a plant are vital and what are their 
several functions ; the student in a laboratory who makes 
by himself an analysis of a compound, and knows how 
to separate carbon from oxygen and from hydrogen, 
passes through a kintl of training which could not be 
acquired by reading, or by hearing lectures. He learns 
in this way patience and minuteness of observation ; 
and he thus becomes acquainted not only with the 
result of other people's investigations into the secrets 
of nature, but also with the operations by means of 
which these investigations have been conducted to a 
successful issue, and by which he himself may hope some 
day to add to the store of truth which has been accumu- 
lated in the world. 

All the best modern scientific teachers insist now 
on the necessity of practical work in the teaching of 
physics in its several departments. The intellectual 
discipline to be had in the pursuit of the inductive 
or experimental sciences is not to be had from books 
alone, nor even from witnessing the demonstrations of 
the most inspiring teacher. It can only be obtained by 
the active co-operation of the student himself, through 
his mistakes and failures as well as his successes, and 
through the actual handling of the materials whose 
properties he wants to discover. A few years ago the 
earliest exercises we had in mechanics were largely 
mathematical. One learned the parallelogram of forces, 
and a number of formulae respecting impact, friction, 
statical and dynamical energy and the like. And all this 
])receded tlie learner's actual contact with machines. But 
the modern teacher takes his pupil to look at the piece 
of meclianisin. the printing-press, the air pump, or the 



1 28 The Trai7ihig of tJic Reason 

barometer as a whole. He first asks what purpose it has to 

serve, then investigates each part, and seeks to show how 

and why it contributes to the fulfilment of that purpose. 

And this method of inductive or analytical procedure, 

from the concrete to the simple, from the whole to the 

part, is found in practice to be much more effective, and 

more in harmony with the constitution of the human 

understanding than that which begins with what are 

often called the elementary principles of Science. That 

which seems first in the order of logic, is often last in the 

order of discovery. So the modern scientific teachers put 

instruments into the student's hands, make him measure 

or dissect for himself, require him to keep a written 

record of such experiments, and to tell afterwards in 

his owm words what he has learned and how he learned 

it. The best teachers ask that he shall accept nothing 

on their authority ; and they are less concerned with the 

value and utility of the result attained than with the 

discipline of the enquiring and even the sceptical spirit, 

and with the formation of that habit of mind which is 

ready to accept all verified truths however unwelcome 

and unexpected they may be. 

Tiuo As to the material on which the inductive faculty is 

neglected ^q work, we mav say that there is no one department of 

branches \ . . 

(5//>//t'j^/(V?/'ini^"i^^n knowledge in which it will not find scope for 

enquiry, exercise. Yet it is in the domain of Nature, and in 
connexion with physical and material forces that, by 
common consent the true scientific spirit is best to be 
cultivated. Nevertheless in the modern curricula laid 
down by Science and Art Departments, and by the 
University authorities who shape the Natural Science 
Tripos, as well as in the humbler regulations which 
prescribe the course of alternative teaching for ele- 
mentary schools, one cannot fail to notice the practical 



Natural History 129 



exclusion of two l)ranclK's of knowledge, which afford, 
each in its own way, an admirable field for careful 
observation, for recording facts and phenomena, and for 
the discovery of new and beautiful general laws. I mean 
Natural History and Astronomy. 

The boundless and multiform experience which lies Xatiiral 
open to the view of the patient and enthusiastic naturalist '^^^"y- 
is well illustrated in Sir John Lubbock's books on Ants 
and Bees. The child who is led to feel an interest in 
the lower animals, otherwise than for sport or ])lay, 
and is shewn how to observe their habits and to learn 
how their structure is adapted to the life thev live, and 
to the part they have to play in Nature's economy — who 
makes and arranges his own collection of caterpillars, of 
leav^es, of ferns, or of shells — is unconsciously a minister 
and to some extent an interpreter of Nature, and is 
undergoing some of the training in the inductive phi- 
losophy which will certainly do much to strengthen his 
intellectual life. And even if it does not lead to the 
making of new discoveries, the habit of making col- 
lections is one which has a great influence in developing 
the observant faculty, and in bringing the learner into 
loving coninumion with Nature. Mr Ruskin for example 
has said, "'i'he leaves of the herbage at our feet take 
all kinds of strange shapes as if to invite us to examine 
them. Star shaped, heart shaped, spear shaped, arrow 
shaped, fretted, fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, sinuated, 
in whorls, in tufts, in spires, in wreaths, endlessly ex- 
pressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the same from foot- 
stalk to blossom, they seem perpetually to tempt our 
watchfulness and take delight in outstripjiing our wonder." 
A boy who hunts through the woods and makes a collec- 
tion of leaves, arranging them according to their shapes, 
assigning the names to the trees and shrubs that bear 

K 



130 TJie Training of the Reason 



them, who observes how in their arrangement, the length 
of their stalks and the exposure of their surfaces, they 
secure to the plant the maximum of light and air, is 
unconsciously receiving a discipline in the elements — if 
not of reasoning — at least in the processes by which the 
material for reasoning and for scientific conclusions may 
be accumulated and used. But it happens that know- 
ledge of this kind does not " pay." No examination 
tests it, no form of honour or degree is to be gained by 
it, no money value attaches to it. And hence perhaps 
it is that it is so little recognized as an educational 
instrument, and so seldom practised. There was a 
remarkable collection of Natural History in connexion 
with the St George's Free Library in London. It had 
been open several years, it was admirably arranged, all the 
objects were duly labelled, grouped and classified, and the 
whole was under the care of an enthusiastic naturalist 
who had collected the principal part of the objects, and 
who was delighted to find any visitors who cared about 
animal life, and to explain the wonders of the collection 
to them. Yet he tells me sadly that though a few persons 
stroll aimlessly through the rooms from time to time, he 
has hardly known one visitor who shews a genuine 
interest in the objects and makes them the material for 
serious systematic study.^ 
Astronomy. And of all the sciences, the grandest and most 
sublime is Astronomy. No study is better calculated 
to exalt the imagination, to enlarge the mental horizon, 
and to give to us a true sense of the richness and vastness 
of the visible creation, and of our own true place in it. 
Yet it is far less studied in our schools than it was many 
years ago. When I was young, I remember in what were 

1 This collection has now been accepted by the London County 
Council, and forms the Natural History Museum at lioxton. ' 



Astronomy 131 

called 'seminaries ' for young ladies that though much of 
the teaching was pretentious and absurdly lacking in 
thoroughness and reality, ' astronomy and the use of the 
globes ' were always put forth in advertisements as integral 
parts of the school course. It is true that the teaching 
was unscientific, that the pupils spent much time in 
learning lists of names, and in finding latitudes and 
longitudes, and the names and positions of the fixed 
stars. I believe that this sort of teaching has gone 
completely out of fashion ; mainly, we may suspect, 
because nobody examines in it, nobody gives prizes for 
it, and there is no commercial value in the result. Yet 
after all even the crude and shallow teaching of the use 
of the globes had its value. It enlarged the horizon of 
the pupils' thoughts. It gave them a new interest in the 
mystery of the heavens, a new sense of the grandeur of the 
universe, and an awed consciousness of * the silence that is 
in the starry sky.' It led them to lift up their eyes with the 
feeling of the old prophet, and to say, ' Who hath created 
these things, that bringeth out their host by number, that 
calleth them all by their names, not one faileth ? ' ^ It 
carried the students out of themselves and the smaller and 
prosaic interests of their own lives, and led them to care 
about what was vast and eternal and infinitely remote. 
Both from the moral and the intellectual point of view, 
this experience is healthfiil and inspiring. It is worth 
while to know how to find the polar star, and how to 
distinguish planets from fixed stars, to look through the 
telescope and see the moons of Jupiter, and to distinguish 
the several constellations in the heavens. And the 
knowledge of these things will go fiir to cultivate the 
observant faculty, and to indicate to learners the methods 
by which the laws of nature have been studied. Astro- 
nomy is one of the most disinterested of sciences, because, 

^ Isaiah xl. 26. 



.132 TJie Training of the Reason 

if pursued at all, it is not because money is to be made 
out of it, but simply because of the delight, and the 
sense of expansion which the study gives. 
Meteor- Akin to purely astronomical studies there is another 

oiogy. matter of inexhaustible and of universal interest — the 
weather. In travelling through the cities of Europe, 
especially in Switzerland and Italy, one sees in central 
public places, a barometer, a thermometer, a rain gauge, 
a wind register, and a daily forecast of the weather. And 
I have watched groups of scholars, boys and girls, on 
their way home consulting it, enquiring and discussing, 
or copying down a figure to take home with them. It 
seems to me that in England our municipal bodies do 
not avail themselves, as they should do, of this simple 
and inexpensive device for increasing the public intelli- 
gence and interesting the young in the phenomena of 
nature. But in boarding schools, in which the teacher 
has the control of leisure hours, as well as of lessons, there 
ought to be kept all these instruments, and if possible a 
telescope also, and when careful observation is regularly 
made and organized, and certain scholars are entrusted 
with the duty of keeping the daily register, a new source 
of interest and of useful enquiry is opened up. There 
are many curious popular fallacies current about meteor- 
ology ; for example, the old and utterly unverified notion 
that the moon's phases affect the weather. Now, in- 
stead of dismissing this as absurd and untrue, suppose 
you invite the elder scholars to help you in refuting or 
verifying it ; by keeping, say for six months, a careful 
record of atmospheric changes, as well as of the lunar 
changes ; and seeing by actual experience whether they 
coincide or not. You cannot fail to give in this way 
an elementary lesson in inductive philosophy, though you 
will not call it by so pretentious a name. 



Object lessons 1 3 3 

Even in the elementary schools it is possible to make Object 
the object lesson an instrument of scientific method. ^■^'^^'"* 
The first thing aimed at in the best schools is to secure 
accurate observation of familiar things. The senses 
must first be cultivated. But unless the sense perception 
is succeeded by what Herbart rather pedantically calls 
' apperception,' or rather by mental assimilation ; unless 
the mind recognizes what the eye sees, there is no educa- 
tion in it at all. Hence it is sometimes said that the first 
sfage in teaching physical science \Si presentation , the next 
representation, or the recognition by means of words, of 
what has been presented, and the third, reflection with 
generalization, — the perception of the truth which the fact 
illustrates, and of the relation in which the fact stands to 
other flicts. Unless indeed the learner is led by some 
such steps, to pass from the region of visible experience, 
into that of intellectual experience, and to perceive the 
broader truths which underlie the facts, those studies 
which have of late contrived to appropriate the name of 
science are of little intellectual value, and will carry the 
learner no great way. 

But there is, in fact, no single subject we teach which 
does not furnish opportunities for exercise in thinking and 
for shewing the difference between true and false inference. 
After all, our minds are not enriched so much by what 
we know, or by what we are told to remember, as by the 
degree in which we think and reflect on what we know. 
In history, for example, how often a wise teacher will 
pause and say, ' We must not be too hasty in accepting 
the current estimate of this event or of this man's 
character. The data are not sufficient. The sources of 
the testimony are a little suspect and doubtful. This 
particular act may have been exceptional, not charac- 
teristic, it may have been brought about by special 



134 Tlie Ti'ainiiig of the Reason 



circumstances of which we know but little. We must 
not treat it as if it were typical, or as if it justified a 
general statement.' Those who have been accustomed to 
form their judgments about historical personages, with this 
caution and reserve, have received a lesson in reasoning 
which will find itself indirecdy but yet effectually appli- 
cable to current events, to political partizanship, to the 
estimates formed of public men, as well as to the 
opinions formed about one another. 
Inductive Let me borrow one other illustration of the inductive 
exercises ^-^^\}^q^ gf advancing through the known to the unknown, 
language, from a region of experience, which does not claim the 
name of Science ; I mean from the study of the English 
language, and particularly that form of mental exercise 
which we may call verbal analysis. I purposely choose my 
illustrations to-day rather from the lower than the higher 
departments of school work. You ask the scholars to 
give you a few instances of words ending with the letters 
tioii. Well, they give you in succession : — 

Examinatiott, Addition, Illustration^ Composition. You 
write down on the black-board a list of such words as 
the pupils supply them. You next take two or three of 
them and ask to have them placed in sentences. After 
this you ask in each case what part of speech the word is, 
and receive in answer that they are all nouns. Next you 
cut off the final syllable, and ask what is left. In each 
case you will be told, examine, add, illustrate, compose, 
that the word is a verb. Then you ask, if the noun is 
derived from a verb, what sort of a noun must it be? It 
does not represent any visible thing ; but an act, an idea, 
a notion which is in the mind ; it is therefore in every 
case an abstract not a common substantive. You pro- 
ceed to shew in each case what the word means — the 
act of doing something, e.g. of examining, of adding, of 



luihictivc lessons in language 135 

composing, or the like. You then recapitulate, and with 
the scholars' help arrive at four conclusions, (i) that the 
words are all nouns, (2) that they are all derived from 
verbs, (3) that they are therefore all abstract nouns, (4) 
that they all mean the act of doing someUiing, Now you 
add, ' I will tell you a fifth thing about them which you 
may not already know. They are all derived from Latin, 
and are not purely English words.' Observe here that you 
have a very elementary but typical example of induction 
as an intellectual process. You first find your examples, 
— the more numerous the better — you next group them 
together, notice wherein they differ and wherein they are 
alike, then try experiments upon them by putting them 
successively into sentences, then generalize upon them, 
then formulate your results. And these results, when 
perceived, are found to apply to other cases which are 
not included in our list. The learner concludes * when 
I meet with a new word of this formation, I must seek the 
origin and explanation of it in the Latin, not the English 
vocabulary.* Notice too how much the value of the 
whole operation consists in the fact that teacher and 
taught have been working together in an effort of dis- 
covery ; no theory was started at first ; the theory as it 
has been evolved has been suggested by the facts, and 
has grown out of them. Take another example. 

The syllable ly if added to a noun makes an adjective : Other 
if added to an adjective makes an adverb. \Vrite down ''•*/'''v'^'! 

•' oj7'cybal 

manly at the top of a column and sivectly at the top of analysis. 
another, put each of them into a sentence, and call 
attention to its form and use. Then ask for a number 
of words ending in ly and suggested to you at random, 
and in each case ask the scholars to determine in which 
column it should be placed and why. The exercise is 
very simple no doubt ; but it is a good example of an 



I ^6 TJic Traiiiing of tJic Reason 

elementary lesson in logical discernment, and in classifi- 
cation, and therefore in the art of thinking. By looking 
at the groups of words, as they are written down, the 
scholars, with these data before them, will be able to 
supply the generalized statement in their own words. 

That words with certain endings are Greek, that others 
are always Latin, others purely English, that certain 
formations are hybrid, and therefore signs of false com- 
position ; that in so composite a language as ours there 
are a few exceptions to almost every general rule ; and 
that therefore our generalizations must be expressed with 
due reserve ; — all these are useful lessons for even the 
youngest child to learn, and they may be learned in an 
effective way not alone by observing and classifying the 
phenomena of the visible and tangible world, but also by 
dealing with the material which we have always close at 
hand, the vocabulary of our own native tongue. 

Indeed I doubt if teachers have yet realized the 
importance of the analytical or inductive method in its 
application to language teaching. The common practice 
of treating the ivord as the unit, of giving rules and 
definitions first and their practical applications afterwards, 
is less effective and certainly far less interesting than the 
treatment of the sentence as the unit, investigating its 
component parts and their relation to each other, com- 
paring sentences having like characteristics, and deducing 
all the laws of concord, and of syntactical arrangement 
as the result of such comparison. Why certain Latin 
verbs should govern a dative, or certain connective par- 
ticles should be followed by the subjunctive, and what is 
the true function of the ablative absolute or of the Greek 
aorist, is to be found best in the collocation of well- 
chosen examples, and not by laying down authorita ive 
rules to be followed blindly. Yet many teachers begin 



Ap/osiiioH and disputation 137 



with definitions, and attempt in the region of language, 
which is essentially a region of experience, to employ 
the methods adopted in mathematics, wherein axioms, 
postulates and general principles may be safely taken 
for granted at first. 

One exercise which has a bracing and healthy action Apposi- 
on the power of reasoning was more common and was'''^'^* 
held in greater esteem in the middle ages than in our time. 
I mean the practice of public speech and disputation, 
iii which the scholar was called on to affirm or deny a 
particular proposition, and to give reasons for his opinion. 
The * Apposition ' at St Paul's and other schools was 
an occasion for a public exercise of this kind. Pepys 
tells us how he went to St Paul's School to hear the 
boys in the Ui)per form appose one another and what he 
thought of the merits of the posers. This form of oral 
exercise has largely disappeared from schools and survives 
only in the higher classes of the great public schools and 
in the ' Union ' of the Universities. No one doubts its 
value as a means of encouraging fluency, self-possession, 
and mastery in the art of argument. It enforces on the 
young aspirant the need of accuracy in accumulating 
facts, of orderly arrangement of his matter, and of logical 
method and a persuasive style. But there is no good 
reason why it should not be adopted more frequently in 
grammar and other intermediate schools, if appropriate 
subjects are selected, and opportunities found. As a 
method of calling out latent talent, and furnishing prac- 
tical discipline in the formation of right opinions, and in 
helping the holders to maintain and defend them, it well 
deserves increased attention on the part of teachers. 
" Nothing," said Robert de Sorbon, the founder of the 
Sorbonne, " is perfectly known, unless it is masticated by 
the tooth of disputation." Here again it is necessary to 



138 



TJic Training of the Reason 



Induction 
a test of 
the valtie 
of educa- 
tional 
methods. 



observe that the business of a school is not to enforce 
opinions, but to give the clearness and openness of 
mind, by means of which opinions, if they are worth 
anything, are alone to be rightly formed. In just the 
proportion in which a community is composed of in- 
telligent persons, uniformity of opinion becomes less 
possible and even desirable. But the fearless and honest 
pursuit of truth, the readiness to follow it wherever it 
may lead, are in themselves of more importance than 
any conclusions on disputable points. There is a story 
of Carlyle who after a long walk and argument with a 
friend said, " We have had a delightful afternoon, and 
except in opinion, we agreed perfectly." 

We have said that the inductive method is indispen- 
sable as an instrument of teaching ; but it is not less so 
as a guide for ourselves in forming an estimate of our own 
procedure, and of the principles on which our work 
should be done. Education is said to be a science ; but 
it is essentially an inductive science, a science of obser- 
vation and experiment. It is not one which will be 
brought to perfection by the study of speculative psycho- 
logy alone ; by accepting what are called first principles ; 
by walking worthy of the doctrines laid down by Comenius, 
by Ascham, or Quintilian or Rousseau or Pestalozzi or 
Spencer or Herbart. All such doctrines have their value, 
and a very high value to the professional practitioner in 
the art ; but they do not serve alone as the basis for a 
science, any more than the theory of vortices, or the 
speculations of Thales about moisture, or the old doctrine 
that all matter is coniposed in different proportions of 
the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. We must 
look a little nearer at the actual phenomena the school- 
room presents if we would arrive at a true science of 
education. 



CJiild study 139 

From this point of view we may regard with much Child 
sympathy and hope the efforts which are now being •^^"^* 
made in America by Dr Stanley Hall and Mr Barnes, 
and in our own country by Professor Sully, to observe 
chiklren's ways and character more carefully and to 
derive if we can practical guidance, from child-study, as 
well as from the a priori speculations of the philosophers. 
But though we may regard these experimental enquiries 
with hope, we must not blind ourselves to possible 
.sources of error, unless those enquiries are conducted 
with due caution and a careful observance of the laws of 
inductive science. There is a danger of encouraging 
introspection and self-consciousness on the part of httle 
children, when we ask them to tell us their motives or 
their thoughts. There is, in many of the experimental 
exercises of which I have read reports, a tendency on 
the part of the teacher to ask children for their opinions 
on subjects on which they have never thought, and on 
which in fact they have formed no opinion at all. Hence 
he sometimes gets random and foolish answers, some- 
times mere guesses, and sometimes answers which are 
framed because the little one has some suspicion of 
what it is that the teacher wants. More often answers 
are given so various and so inconsistent with one 
another, that it is impossible to base any trustworthy 
conclusion upon them. So although the desire of many 
teachers to engage in child study evinces a true philo- 
sophic instinct we must in pursuing it guard ourselves 
against its dangers, and must be aware of its hmitations. 
We must not be probing the minds of children to discover 
what is not there ; nor encourage them to attach exag- 
gerated importance to their own little experiences and 
opinions. We must beware of unreality, of confusing the 
real relations which should subsist between teacher and 



140 TJic Training of the Reason 

taught. Above all we have to guard ourselves against 
mistaking accidental and exceptional phenomena for 
typical facts ; against drawing general conclusions too 
hastily from insufficient data. When I read in Ameri- 
can books the contradictory, confused, and grotesque 
replies which have been so diligently compiled, I am 
more than ever convinced that generalizations founded 
on such data may often prove useless and sometimes 
misleading, and that they need therefore to be held in 
suspense for the present, until they shall be verified or 
corrected by a larger experience. 

Some of the plans adopted in these investigations 
seem to me highly ingenious, and a few of the generaliza- 
tions obtained from them to be fruitful and suggestive. 
The experiments made in connexion with the earliest and 
crudest attempts of little children to draw familiar objects 
have shewn clearly how common it is to attempt to 
pourtray not what they actually see, but what they know 
to be there. Such experiments are most instructive to 
teachers of drawing and design. But when we get into 
the region of morals, and of conduct, when we seek to 
measure the forces which are at work in the formation 
of the child's character and sentiments, it does not 
appear to me that the enquiries have yet conducted us 
to any valuable results. This is not a reason for aban- 
doning the quest, or for discouraging researches into this 
interesting region of experience. But it is a strong reason 
for caution, and patience, and for resisting all temptation to 
accept general conclusions while the data are incomplete. 
The three FinaUty has not yet been reached. True progress 

stages of \y^^ ^^^^ development of educational science can only be 
inductive attamed by means of a fuller application 01 the mduc- 
science. |_iyg method. Comte has taught that there are three 
stages in the history of science. At first men lay down 



Three stages of scientific progress 141 

large general principles, and expect them to be taken as 
axiomatic and accepted truths, which contain in them 
the explanation of all which has to be explained. Next 
comes the stage at which phenomena are observed and 
an attempt is made to fit the explanation of them to the 
first principles which have been already accepted. Lastly 
comes the sense of dissatisfaction expressed by Bacon 
or Darwin with these explanations ; and the detennina- 
tion to investigate the facts alone, to let them suggest 
the theories ; and to accept no theories which do not 
grow out of the phenomena themselves and cannot be 
verified by actual experience. AVe have however not yet, 
in educational philosophy, got far beyond the first of 
these stages. We start from what seem to be first prin- 
ciples — then we look hesitatingly at the facts of experience 
in our schools and colleges and see how far they can be 
made to fit into our theories, and are disposed to say if 
we are unsuccessful — taut pis pour les faits. At last we 
come to the humbler task which we ought to have put at 
the beginning of our enquiries, and are foin to ask again 
Charles II. 's question when the Royal Society brought him 
a scientific discovery, " Are you quite sure of your facts? " 
So if the ([uestion arises, for instance, Can Psycho- 
logy help us much? We must answer, "That depends 
on the other questions, (i) Is it a true psychology? 

(2) Is it verifiable, and has it been actually verified by the 
facts of daily experience in our families and schools? and 

(3) Are the teachers who i)rofess it and have studied it 
found to be more skilful and more successful than others 
in the management of scliolars and of schools? " To this 
crucial test all theories ought in the end to be submitted. 

Again in determining the educational value of the The Kin- 
Frobelian method of training young children, we cannot ''''^'''>^'^''''^'^''* 
come to a riglit conclusion b)' speculating on the order 



142 TJie Training of tJic Reason 



in which the faculties are developed ; it would be well 
also to take two groups of children at the age of ten or 
twelve, of whom those in one group have, and those in 
the other have not been subjected to the Kindergarten 
discipline, and ask ourselves on which side the advantage 
Hes, in respect to general brightness and intelligence, 
desire to learn, and fitness to enter upon the studies 
appropriate to a later age ? I beheve that the answer to 
such questions will be reassuring. I think it will confirm 
our faith in the value of the Frobelian training ; and will 
prove that the awakening of faculty, the exercises of eye 
and hand, and the introduction of activity and joyousness 
into the early school life, have often served to make the 
subsequent school exercises easier and more effective. 
But if this does not prove to be the result, let us honestly 
confess it and revise our theories. 
Manual In like manner the educational value of manual and 

instrtu- technical as distinguished from literary instruction cannot 
be estimated a prion. U e want to know what is the 
place which such instruction ought to hold in a rounded 
and complete system of general education ; and in order 
to be sure of our conclusions, it is needful to enquire (i) 
of teachers, what is the reflex influence of manual work 
upon inteflectual employments, and upon the habits of 
mind which the scholars are acquiring? and (2) of em- 
ployers of skilled labour, do they find that the school 
exercises have been actuafly helpful in producing more 
skilled artizans? Have these exercises tended to make 
the pupils more industrious, more accurate, more open- 
eyed, and fonder of mechanical work? The true justifi- 
cation of the workshop and the laboratory as adjuncts to 
the modern school-room can only be found in a satis- 
factory reply to these questions, and, at present, we await 
such a reply. 



Re/igioKS tiacJiing 143 

Even in regard to the highest of all our educational Religions 

interests — those which concern the discipline of character, l^^^yl^if 

and the teaching of religion, we cannot safely shrink from judgl'd'/>v 

the test of experience. It ought not to suffice for us to ^^^ 'f " ^^ 
1 ° on charac- 

reason from what appear to be first principles and to ter. 
assume, for example, that the religious life is to be formed 
by the early and authoritative inculcation of certain 
theological beliefs. It is also necessary that, freeing our- 
selves sometimes from all prepossessions on this subject, 
.we should look around us and ask, " x'\re the scholars who 
have been taught on this hypothesis found to be in after- 
life attached to the communion to which they owe their 
special religious teaching?" Can we trace in their sub- 
sequent history any enduring results of such teaching? 
Is any difference recognizable afterwards between those 
who have and those who have not been subject to a 
particular kind of dogmatic teaching? And as regards 
our own personal experience, when we look back on the 
influences which have shaped our lives, we may profitably 
ask. Were those which took the form of didactic lessons 
after all the most potent and enduring? Whether the 
result of honest self-interrogation confirms our precon- 
ceived opinion of the value of creeds and formularies, or 
leads us to modify that opinion, the enquiry will prove 
equally valuable. 

(iibbon's ;/^y/" retrospective estimate of the influence 
of his early studies on the formation of his own tastes 
and character is an example of a department of literature 
hitherto very imperfectly explored. To search through 
the autobiographies of flimous writers and statesmen and 
to learn what in their opinion has been the worth of their 
school learning would be in itself an instructive study, 
and a test of the soundness of many cherished opinions. 
This is a task which yet awaits the enterprising explorer. 



144 TJie Training of the Reasoji 

Results. The principle of ^'paytneiit by results" has been by 

general consent abandoned, as a contrivance for estimat- 
ing the amount of money-grant which should be awarded 
to schools from public funds. But the right estimation 
of results will always be the best way of determining the 
status of a school and the value of its methods. Grant 
only that our conception of what constitute the best re- 
sults is a wide and true one, and also that the mode of 
estimating the results is duly intelligent and sympathetic, 
public authorities who may be charged with the supervision 
of schools on behalf of the State will always be justified 
in seeking to know what is the outcome of their work. 
In obtaining this knowledge they will not rely wholly on 
the quality and the number of written answers to ques- 
tions, nor wholly on the general impressions of an 
inspector, as to the methods and discipline and tone of 
a school. But they will seek to combine the two pro- 
cesses of inspection and examination, and so to get the 
maximum of advantage from both methods. 

The sum of all I have sought to enforce on this point 
is that education is a progressive science, at present in a 
very early stage of development. Hence it is the duty 
of all the practitioners of that science to be well aware 
of its incompleteness, and to do something to enlarge its 
boundaries and enrich it with new discoveries. Every 
school is a laboratory in which new experiments may be 
tried and new truths may be brought to light. And 
every teacher who invents a new method or finds a new 
channel of access to the intelligence, the conscience and 
the sympathy of his scholars will do a service not only 
to his professional brethren and successors, but to the 
whole community. 



LECTURE V 

HAND WORK AND HEAD WORK 

^lanual and technical instruction. Why it is advocated. Appren- 
ticeship. Ecoles tVApprentissage. Technological Institutes. 
The Yorkshire College of Science. French technical schools, 
(i) for girls, (2) forartizans. The Frobelian discipline. Sweden 
and sloyd work. The icole Modele at Brussels. Drawing and 
design. Educational influences of manual training. The 
psychological basis for it. Variety of aptitude. The dignity 
of labour. Limitations to the claims of manual training. 
Needlework. General conclusions. 

I PROPOSE now to invite your attention to the sub- Manual 
ject of manual training, which of late has been '^'^^' amP^"^ 
prominent in public discus iion, and will certainly \yt technical 

brought under the notice of younsj teachers enterins: now '"•^^'"^" 

" . • tion. 

on their profession. Such teachers may soon be con- 
fronted with the question in many different ways. But 
it is one on which it is very desirable that they should 
make u}) their minds, and pos.sess themselves not only 
with opinions but also with the reasons which justify 
their opinions. 

The phrases Technical Instruction, Hand-ar/wil, and 
Manual Training, are used in various senses, sometimes 
with much vagueness, and often by persons who have 
very different objects in view. But they have become 
popular, and we do well to think of tlie two or three very 
different meanings which are assigned to them. 
L 145 



146 Hand 7Vork and J wad i^'ork 



Why it is First of all, we have to reckon with those advocates 
advocated. ^^ niaiiual training who see it chiefly in connexion with 
different forms of skilled industry. They desire to obtain 
for the artizan such instruction in handicraft as may pre- 
pare him for the special employment of his life, and as 
may make all the difference between the skilled and the 
unskilled workman. They say with much truth that the 
material prosperity of a country depends largely on 
the skill and knowledge of its workers, and that in this 
country we have paid too little attention to the sciences 
which are most closely connected with manual industry. 
They urge the need of more technical instruction in 
order to obtain for this country a better place in the 
labour market and a larger share of the trade and manu- 
factures of the world. 

There are others who, without seeking to prepare the 
young scholar for the particular form of handicraft by 
which he is to get his living, wish to provide for him the 
means of obtaining such general tactual skill, such know- 
ledge of the properties of the substances which have to 
be handled, and such aptitude in the use of tools, as 
shall make him readier for any form of mechanical 
industry which he may happen to choose. 

A third class of advocates of manual training urge 
that in all our systems of general education the memory, 
the judgment, and the purely intellectual faculties have 
been too exclusively cultivated, and that the discipline of 
hand and eye and of the bodily powers generally has been 
too much neglected. The Spartan training of the bow 
and the palaestra proceeded on the assumption that, in 
fitting a man for the business of life, we have to consider 
not only what he knows but what he can do. Is he deft 
with his fingers? Can he run and swim, handle tools, 
use all his physical powers with promptitude and energy? 



Dijfirciit views of uianual h(Uinii<r 147 



If not, the Greeks would have said he is not a well- 
trained or conii)lete man: his education is deficient. 

There is a fourth class of i)crsons who rank as 
advocates of industrial education because they dislike 
intellectual training for the poor and the humbler classes 
altogether. 'I'hey say, in effect, We must have a prole- 
tariat. It is fitting that there should be ** hewers of wood 
and drawers of water." I-ct us train the lowest class of 
our j)coi)le on the supposition that they are to fulfil this 
function. l*or them, strength of limb, hardihood, handi- 
ness are needed. Books, and the sort of asi)iration which 
is encouraged by books, would only tempt them into 
employments wherein, possibly, they might compete with 
l)ersons of a higher social level, and become inconvenient 
rivals. The education of the artizan should not be too 
ambitious. It should be designed to fit him for the 
humble work to which the circumstances of his birth 
have called him, and to keep him in this lower rank. This 
sort of reasoning is hardly avowed, but it certainly under- 
lies some of the arguments we occasionally hear used on 
this subject, lender the disguise of a solicitude in favour 
of more i)ractical training for the ploughman or the 
labourer, there exists in many minds a deep distrust of 
the value of mental training altogether — a desire to use 
schools as a means of maintaining the established order 
of society, and of rei)ressing inconvenient social or intel- 
lectual ambition. In short, there is latent in the thoughts 
of many people, who would hardly like to acknowledge it, 
a wisii to restrict the instru(ti(jn of arti/.ans to the special 
work of tlieir trades, not necessarily because they will 
tiiereby do that work better, but because it is believed 
that they will be practically dis(|iialifie(l for attemj)ting 
anything else. 

For the jjresent, we need not dwell either on the 



148 Hand luork and head zvork 

motives or the projects of this last class, except perhaps 
for the purpose, with which I hope this audience at least 
will sympathize, of earnestly repudiating them. But we 
ought not to overlook the fact that the class is neither 
small nor uninfluential in the world in which we live, 
and that its existence as a potent though unacknowledged 
factor in our educational controversies cannot altogether 
be disregarded. 

First of all, it is well to look at the industrial and 
commercial side of the problem, and to consider how 
our material wealth may be increased by a fuller and 
more systematic manual training. This is not the first 
business of a school teacher, but it is one which cannot 
be overlooked. 
Appren- In earlier times the skilled workman was trained as 

ticeship. ^^ apprentice. No one could, in the Middle Ages, hope 
to become a member of any trade guild who had not 
served a regular apprenticeship under a master. An 
apprenticeship was a reality. The relations which sub- 
sisted between Edward Osborne, or the apprentices of 
Simon the Glover, in the " Fair Maid of Perth," or young 
Tappertit, the locksmith's apprentice, and their masters, 
were, in an industrial sense, those of sons to a parent. 
The master worked side by side with the youths, cared 
for them as inmates of his house, and was proud of their 
successes when they joined the ranks of skilled workmen. 
That state of things has passed away, never to return. 
There are, all over England, endowments for apprentice- 
ship, survivals from a time when they served a valuable 
purpose; but they serve no such purpose now. They 
are more often disguised doles to parents, contributions 
to a lad's maintenance before he is able to earn the whole 
of his living; but they do not help him to obtain system- 
atic instruction in tlie art and iiiystery of an honest craft. 



Apprenticeship 149 



The conditions of industrial life are wholly changed. 
The concentration of manufactures into large establish- 
ments, increased use of machinery, the division of labour, 
the keenness and restlessness of modern competition, 
are all inconsistent with the old conception of appren- 
ticeship. The master does not live with his young 
assistants; he hands them over to foremen who are often 
themselves comparatively untaught mechanics, familiar 
only with one particular department of work, and in- 
capable of giving instruction in the trade as a whole. 

Now, what should be the modern substitute for this 
interesting but now obsolete system of apprenticeship? 
\Ve want as much as ever, nay much more than ever, intel- 
ligence and good training on the part of our workmen. 
But it is clear that this must now be sought in a different 
way. We must begin recognizing that it is discreditable 
to a man of any self-respect to handle every day materials 
of whose qualities he is ignorant, and to employ natural 
forces, machines, and instruments, the nature of which he 
has never cared to investigate. There is a science under- 
lying every art however humble; and the main difference 
between the unskilled and the skilled workman is, that 
the one knows, and the other does not know, something 
about that science and about the meaning of what he is 
doing. And for the acquisition of this knowledge, as 
well as for due practice in the right manipulation of 
tools and instruments, we must look in these days rather 
to schools and technical institutes, than to the industrial 
l)Uj)il-teachership which was once known under the name 
of the apprentice system. 

On the continent of luirope, especially in France and 6.coles 

Belgium, there are institutions known as " Kcoles des'/.'^^^''*^'^" 
^ tissage. 

Arts et des Metiers " which seek to supply this want. I 
visited, some time ago, a very chr.iacteristic establish- 



150 Hand ivork and head luork 

ment of this kind at Courtrai. Its professed object is to 
encourage the introduction of new industries, to form 
good workmen and good foremen, to inspire them with 
the love of work and with habits of order, to impress 
them with the sense of social and religious obligation, 
to increase the means of subsistence, and to arrest the 
progress of pauperism. 

The institution with this large and comprehensive 
programme has an extensive building devoted partly to 
the purposes of general instruction and partly to the 
ateliers or workshops. The minimum age of admission 
is twelve, but the ordinary age is fourteen. The course 
lasts three years. No one is admitted who has not 
received a fair elementary education. 

The course of general instruction comprises, in the 
first year. Drawing, Arithmetic, French Language, Prac- 
tical Geometry; in the second year. Drawing, French, 
Experimental Physics, Mechanics, Geometry, Inorganic 
Chemistry; and in the third year. Drawing, Applied 
Mechanics in its application to trades. Knowledge of 
Materials, Organic Chemistry, Industrial Economy, the 
Calculus. 

Six ateliers are attached to the Institute — (i) Me- 
chanical construction; (2) a Foundry; (3) Furniture; 
(4) Electricity and its applications; (5) Hosiery; (6) 
Weaving. Each of these is under the care of a skilled 
director, chosen partly for his practical knowledge of the 
business, and partly for his scientific acquaintance with 
the principles on which the particular industry depends. 
The workshops are real places of business, and are not 
educational only. They produce machines, electrical 
and other apparatus, furniture, and articles of many 
kinds, which are sold in the market at a profit. A sub- 
stantial part of every day is spent by each student in the 



Ecolcs iV Apprcntissage 151 

workshops, the work being regukuly graduated in diffi- 
culty, and carried on under supervision. But it is notable 
that from two to three hours per day are devoted to 
ancillary studies, not exclusively industrial or mechani- 
cal, but calculated to ^tcwit pari passu the development of 
the students' intelligence. Hence, exercises in language 
are continued during the whole course. Drawing, design, 
and geometry are part of the routine prescribed for every 
student; while courses on electricity, chemistry, strength 
of materials, mechanics, etc., are given to each group of 
learners to correspond to the special character of the 
department of industry to which they are severally 
attached. In the last year there is a special course of 
lectures on Economic Science and the laws which regulate 
industrial life and progress — e.g. Production, Division 
of Labour, Capital, Money, Banking, Partition of Profits, 
Partnership, Wages, Trades Unions, Strikes, Savings, 
Investment, Credit, Direct and Indirect Taxation. Visits 
to neighbouring factories and industrial centres are regu- 
larly organized, especially in the third year of training, 
and after each visit a full account, with illustrative draw- 
ings and descriptions, is required of every pupil. An 
elaborate scientific and general library, with abundance 
of drawings and plans of famous machines and factories, 
is accessible to the students. 

Now, the object of such an institute is technical 
instruction in its definite relation to the particular form 
of skilled industry which the student ]:)roposes to adopt 
as the business of his life. It has an essentially 
economic and industrial purpose. That purpose is, to 
provide for the future masters, foremen, and captains of 
industry a sound professional training. But it is to be 
observed that, from the first, mental cultivation by means 
of language and abstract science, and the investigation 



152 Hand work and head work 

of principles, is regarded as an indispensable part of 
this training. There is, on the part of the enlightened 
founders of this institution, even though its object is so 
distinctively utilitarian, no belief in any antagonism or 
inconsistency between hand work and head work. The 
two are regarded as inseparably connected. 
Techno- And the same may be said, in different degrees, of 

logical those other institutions which are now coming into pro- 

InStltllteS. . 1 , . I r 1 « 1 • 11 r 

minence on both sides of the Atlantic under the name of 
Technical or Science Schools. These are in no sense 
factories, and do not profess to carry on a business, but 
their aim is more purely educational. The most remark- 
able example of the kind in the United States is the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. Here there 
is a sumptuous building, admirably equipped, not only 
with chemical and physical laboratories, but also with 
departments for the study of mechanical engineering, of 
electricity, of architecture, of biology with a view to the 
requirements of medical students, of heat and ventilation, 
of mining and metallurgy. The characteristic feature of 
the institution is that in every department practical work 
supplements oral or book-teaching. The student is 
required, as soon as he knows anything, to do something 
which requires the application of his knowledge. There 
are upwards of 800 students in the three departments of 
Practical Design, Mechanic Art, and Industrial Science. 
All of them must have passed successfully through a 
good course of grammar and high school instruction 
before entering; and all of them are looking forward to 
becoming either masters or superintendents in factories 
or houses of business. 
The York- In England a characteristic example of the many 

shire Col- i^-jodern institutions of a similar type is the Yorkshire 

lege of -^ ^ 

Science. College of Science. It is situated in Leeds, in the centre 



Technological Ins!itutcs 153 

of the great cloth industry, where dyeing, weaving, and 
cognate processes form the chief employments of the 
people. Besides costly and elaborate provision in the form 
of laboratories, lecture-rooms, and libraries, designed both 
for theoretical and practical instruction, there are large 
departments especially devoted to dyeing and weaving. 
In on^ room you may see a group of students each before 
his own table manipulating his apparatus, and making 
his own experiments in the application of different 
colouring matters to different fabrics. Each student 
makes a written statement of the nature of the material 
on which he works, the chemical composition of his 
pigments, the time occupied by the process, the pheno- 
mena of change observable while it lasted. Then he 
places his memoranda with a specimen of the coloured 
piece of cloth itself in a book as a permanent record of 
the experiment for future reference. The weaving labo- 
ratory is, in some respects, a still more curious and novel 
department. Each student has a small hand-loom, on 
which he himself works, and on which he is encouraged 
lo try all kinds of new artifices for combining warp and 
woof of different textures and colours, and for inventing 
new patterns. In another laboratory, which can be 
wholly or partially darkened for the purpose, there is a 
special series of investigation into the nature of light and 
colour, and students are helped to understand truths 
about the science of optics, not only by actual experi- 
ment, but also to a large extent by making for themselves 
some of the aj^paratus by which those experiments are 
conducted. In short, in this and many more great 
modern institutions than I have time here to enumerate, 
we ha\e alniost a full realization of Bacon's dream in 
the 'New Atlantis,' of Solomon's House, with its mani- 
fold chambers of experiment and observation. It is 



1 54 Hand work and head ivork 



a distinct addition to the material resources of our own 
time, and a solution to many economical difficulties. 

The Technical Institute of the City and Guilds of 
London is in like manner a noble example of an institu- 
tion in which it is sought successfully to give to those 
who are to be leaders and captains of industry, a fuller 
knowledge of the sciences connected with their several 
trades. Men thus trained will on entering the ranks of 
labour make fewer mistakes, will initiate more fruitful 
experiments, and will economize better the materials on 
which they have to work. But it can hardly be said that 
at present either in such institutes nor in the various 
classes carried on with so much vigour by the London 
County Council, for the teaching of building construction, 
metal trades, book and printing work, leather, carpen- 
tering and other industries, so much attention has been 
paid as in Germany, in Switzerland, and in France to 
the need of general mental cultivation as the basis of 
technical instruction. Our technical schools are for the 
most part places of manual and scientific instruction only; 
and the constant complaint of the authorities is that the 
scholars come to the institutes too soon, before they have 
received that discipline in general intelligence which is 
a necessary preliminary for making a right use of the 
specific training proper to particular trades. 
French In France this difficulty is met partly by insisting that 

no one shall enter the apprentice school unless he or she 
has obtained the certificat d' etudes priinaires\Q.'sX\{y\wg that 
the ordinary primary school course has been success- 
fully completed; and partly by requiring that intellectual 
exercises shall in all cases be carried on pari passu with 
manual exercises. 

On this point let me cite some of my own experience 
when engaged in an official enquiry into some conti- 



techiiical 
schools. 



FrencJi tccJinical scJiools 1 5 5 

nental schools. It is taken from a paper presented to 
Parliament in tlie year 1891. 

Of the institutions with a well-defined and directly (i)>r 
practical object, the Ecole professioncUe inhiai^cre in the^^'" ^' 
Rue Fondary, for girls, and the ^V6'/^ i?/V/.f/7^/ for boys are 
sufficiently remarkable to justify a brief description here. 
I^ach of them may be regarded mainly as an apprentice 
school in which the pupil is learning the particular art or 
trade by which he or she intends to get a living. But 
neither is a mere trade school, for intellectual instruction 
receives much attention in both. In the girls' school, 
the day is divided into two parts, the morning being 
devoted to the general education presumably required 
by all the pupils alike, and the afternoon to the special 
businesses which they have respectively chosen. From 
half-past eight to half-past eleven the work includes 
advanced elementary instruction generally, exercises in 
French language and composition, book-keeping (for 
French women are very largely employed in keeping 
accounts), one foreign language, English or German at 
the parents' choice, and such practice in drawing and 
design as has a special bearing on the trade or employ- 
ment to which the pupil is destined. Thus, those who 
are to be dressmakers or milliners draw patterns of differ- 
ent articles of dress, are taught to paint them artistically, 
and to invent new patterns and combinations of colour 
and ornament; those who are to be fleiiristes draw and 
paint flowers from nature, and group and arrange them 
after their own designs. Besides this, r cnscigncment du 
mencif^e or household management and needlework form 
part of the instruction given to all the pupils. Articles 
of dress are cut out, and made for sale or use, and on 
certain days clothing which needs repair may be brought 
from home and mended under the direction of the 



156 Hand work and head work 



mistress. The pupils are told off eight at a time to spend 
the mornings of a whole week in the kitchen. Since all 
the pupils take their dejeuner daily in the establishment, 
there is necessarily a large demand for the services of 
these cooks. The sum to be expended per day is care- 
fully restricted, and the pupils learn under the direction 
of the head of the kitchen how to prepare a menu, and 
to vary it from day to day, and are expected to go out in 
turn and make the necessary purchases in the market. 
The girls who are responsible for the week's provision 
are required to keep full accounts of the expenditure, 
and as they become more experienced each is invited in 
turn to devise a new menu, and to suggest ways in which 
the sum granted by the municipality can be best econo- 
mized. For their services, the eight chosen pupils of the 
week receive their own meals gratuitously, all other 
scholars paying for theirs at cost price. The afternoon 
of every day is devoted to the practice, under skilled 
instructresses, of millinery, dressmaking, artificial flower 
making, embroidery, and other feminine aits. Orders 
are received from ladies, and articles are made and 
ornamentea by the pupils and sold at a profit. 
{2) for In the Ecole Diderot for youths from 13 to 16 a 

ariizans. gj^-^-^^j^j. general plan prevails. There is an entrance 
examination, which is practically competitive. The 
mornings are spent in the class or in lecture-rooms under 
the care of professors in language, mathematics, chemistry 
and physics, history, geography, design, geometrical and 
artistic, and comptahilite. The pupil elects one modern 
language, German or English, at his discretion. A\'ritten 
reports are also required of visits to factories, and 
descriptions with drawings of machines and instruments. 
The afternoons are spent in the workshops. During the 
first year a boy visits each of these in turn, gets some 



French tcc/uiical schools 157 



elementary knowledge about tools and their uses, but 
does not select his uietier until the beginning of the 
second year. Then, when he has been helped to dis- 
cover his own special aptitude, the choice is before him. 
There are the forge, the engine house, the carpenter's 
shop, the modelling room, the turning lathes, the uphol- 
sterer's department, and the work-room in which instru- 
ments of precision are used for making electrical or other 
scientific apparatus. When he has selected one of these, 
he devotes the afternoons of the remaining two years of 
his course to learning, under a skilled director, the art 
and mystery of his special craft. In the workshops, 
articles are made anci finished for the market, many of 
the desks, forms, and black-boards, for exami)le, required 
in the Paris school-rooms being manufactured in the 
carpenter's department. In this way some part of the 
generous provision made by the municipality for afford- 
ing gratuitous technical instruction is rendered back in 
the form of profit. 

The most striking feature of these two great trade The trade 
schools is the association in them of general and '^V^^^'^^^cxdmivel > 
training. There is in them no attempt to divorce \\2LXiA technical'. 
work from head work, or to treat the first as a substitute 
for the second. The girl who is to be a modiste or a 
brodfuse is to be that and something more. The boy 
who is to be a joiner or an engineer is also to know 
something of literature and science. The morning of 
every day is devoted to intellectual exercise, and no 
pupil who fails to attend the morning classes is permitted 
to enter the atelier in the afternoon. "I think," said 
M. Boctjuet, the very able director of the Ecole Diderot, 
to me, " that the training in art, in science, and in litera- 
ture in our morning classes is the best part of our day's 
work. I should not value any technical or manual 



158 



Ha7td woi^k and head ivork 



Educa- 
tional 
value of 
manual 
training. 



training which was carried on without it." While I was 
talking to him a youth brought up a design he had been 
modelling to shew his master. "Ah ! " said M. Bocquet, 
" I see, that has been done with your hands : there has 
been no head work in it. Take it back, and think about it 
a little more, and I do not doubt that you will improve it." 
It is in this spirit that manual training appears to me to 
be finding its true place in the French schools, not as a 
new instrument of education in rivalry with the old, but 
as part of a rounded and coherent system of discipline, 
designed to bring into harmony both the physical and 
intellectual forces of the future workman, and to make 
them helpful to each other. • 

I spoke of a third view of the subject of technical 
instruction — that which regards hand and eye training 
per se as an essential part of human culture, apart alto- 
gether from its value as a help in doing the business of 
life. The advocates of this view cite Rousseau, and 
Frobel, and Pestalozzi, and urge with truth that the 
brain is not the only organ which should be developed 
in a school; that, to do justice to the whole sum of 
human powers and activities, there should be due exercise 
for the senses, and definite practice in the use of the 
fingers and the bodily powers. They do not want to 
specialize the work of the primary school with a view to 
the production of economic results. One of the ablest 
writers on this subject, Mr James MacAlister, Superin- 
tendent of the Public Schools of Philadelphia, puts the 
case clearly: "The object of the public school is educa- 
tion in its broadest sense. If industrial training cannot 
be shewn to be education in this sense, it has no place 
in the public school. We have no more right to teach 
carpentry and bookbinding than we have to teach law 
and medicine. The supreme end of education is the 



Educational value of manual training 1 59 

harmonious development of all the powers of a human 
being. Whatever ministers to this end is education; what- 
ever interferes with its accomplishment, no matter how 
valuable it is, lies outside of the province of the school." 

I think this is the aspect of the whole controversy 
which is most interesting and significant to us as teachers. 
Grant that the Trade School and the ^J'echnological Insti- 
ture are fulfilling an important economic purpose, yet they 
do not belong to our immediate domain. The question 
arises. Can hand work claim a place in a well-considered 
scheme of general school education; and, if so, what place? 

Some of the experience in the English elementary 77^^ 

schools is very significant in its bearing on this question, lydbehan 
., r , 111 • • r 1 ihscipline. 

In nearly all of these schools there is an infant department 

or class for scholars below and up to the age of 7. Up to 
1880 the mainsubjectsof instructioninthese infant depart- 
ments were the rudiments of reading, writing, and arith- 
metic, with a few occasional lessons on objects, and on 
form and colour; and the chief test of the efficiency of 
such schools applied by the inspector was an examination 
in the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic. But 
when the Code of instruction was recast in 1881, the 
requirements of the infant school were so enlarged as to 
include not only reading, writing, and arithmetic and 
lessons on subjects and on the phenomena of nature and 
of common life, but also varied and interesting manual 
exercises and employments. And since that date no 
infant school has been able to claim the highest rank 
unless it satisfied the inspector in this last particular. In 
other words, the kindergarten system and the little gifts 
and manual occupations devised by Frobel have become 
a recognized part of the system of early training in the 
English schools. So you have marching and drill, plait- 
ing and moulding, the building \\y of wooden bricks in 



1 60 Hand work and head work 



different forms, drawing, cutting little patterns, weaving, 
and many other employments designed to give delicacy 
to the touch, keenness to the observant powers, a sense 
of beauty in form and colours, and the power to use the 
fingers with dexterity and care. Teachers have been 
specially warned in the 'Instructions to Her Majesty's 
Inspectors ' that " it is of no use to adopt the gifts and 
mere mechanical exercises of the kindergarten unless 
they are so used as to furnish real training in observa- 
tion, in accuracy of hand and eye, and in attention and 
obedience." 

Two results have followed the trial of this experiment. 
It has been found that the infant schools have become 
much more attractive to the little ones and to their 
parents, that order is more easily obtained, and that the 
infant schools are happier and more cheerful places than 
they once were. And the other result is not less impor- 
tant. It is seen also that children who have been thus 
trained pass the simple examinations in reading, writing, 
and arithmetic, appropriate to the eighth year, not less 
satisfactorily and much more easily than before. The 
withdrawal of some of the hours of the day for varied 
manual occupations, so far from diminishing the chance 
of progress in the ordinary departments of scliool instruc- 
tion, has had the effect of accelerating that progress, 
by means of the general quickening of intelligence and 
increase of power developed by the kindergarten. 
Sweden This view of the relation between manual work and 

''"/'' -^general culture may be further illustrated by what is done 

%vork. ^ ■' ■' _ 

in Sweden under the name of Slojd. There is much 
exercise in wood-carving and in the use of tools. At 
(Gothenburg and at Naas, manual instruction is begun at 
the age of ten or eleven, and the scholars are drafted into 
the workshops for two or three hours of every week. 



The Bnisst'ls Ecolc jMocUIc i6i 



There is a carpenter's shop, a forge, a room for the cut- 
ting and nianipuhiting of i)aper i)atterns and oinauients, 
a painting and decoration school, and a factory for the 
making of baskets, toys, and other fabrics. The object 
of the first year's course is mainly to give to the pupil 
not merely general aptitude but a resj^ect for manual 
labour. In this way he is heli)ed in his second year to 
discover his own me tier and to devote himself to it. In 
the words of one of the ablest writers and observers of 
tli'e system, AT. Sluys, of Brussels: — ''The object aimed 
at is purely pedagogic. Manual labour is considered as 
an educative instrument, iiolding a rank equal to that of 
other branches of the programme." 

There is a remarkable school in Brussels called the The 

Model School, which i)rovides for ])upils from the aa:e of h^'^lf, 

^ ^ * ^ Modele at 

SIX to sixteen, and gives a very efficient and liberal Brussels. 
education, including language, mathematics, and physical 
science, according to the most approved modern types. 
In this school the experiment has been tried of carrying 
forward the theories of Frobel all through the classes 
from the lowest to the highest. Up to six, the ordinary 
employments of the Kindergarten are systematically 
pursued. From six to eight, similar exercises of a more 
artistic character, chiefly modelling, are used. From 
eight to ten, the chief employments are those, included 
under the general heading eartoiinai^e, the cutting out 
and fixing of paper patterns in all sorts of geometrical 
and ornamental forms. l-'rom ten to twcKe, wood- 
carving is the chief employment; while in the higher 
classes artistic and decorative work in wood, metal, and 
other materials is recpiired from every ])upil. 

Let me give you, from my own evidence before a 
recent Royal Commission, a dcscrijjtion of what was 
going on in a class of children about ten years old whom 

M 



1 62 Hand work and head zvork 

I found at work in the Ecole Modele. " There was a con- 
tinuous black-board round the room; it was marked off in 
sections, and each child stood in front, and had on a shelf, 
clay, a graduated metrical rule, a little wooden instrument 
for manipulating the clay, compasses, and chalk. The 
master stood in the middle of the room and said, 'Now 
draw a horizontal line five centimetres long,' and he 
walked round and saw that it was done. 'Now draw, 
at an angle of 45°, another line three centimetres long.' 
And so by a series of directions he got them all to pro- 
duce a predetermined geometrical pattern of his own. 
'Now,' he said, 'take clay and fasten it on to the 
outside, making of it an ornamental framework, and let 
it be exactly such a fraction of a metre thick.' They 
worked it round with the help of the instrument. Then 
he said at the end, 'Now which of you thinks he can do 
anything to improve it, and make it more ornamental? ' 
And some by means of the compasses, and some by 
means of the rule or by fixing pieces of clay, placed little 
additional decoration at the corners or round the border. 
At the end of the lesson every child had before him a 
different design. That was throughout an exercise, not 
in hand work only, but in intelligence, in measurement, 
in taste, and in inventiveness. It illustrated a real educa- 
tional process. I should like very much to see some- 
thing of that sort introduced into the English schools."^ 
We have not, it is true, yet advanced so far. Indeed, 
it is observable that, even in Belgium, the school I refer 
to is an exceptional institution, in no sense typical of the 
ordinary "Communal School." But all the recent regu- 
lations of our English Education Department emphasize 
strongly the importance of drawing, and offer increased 

1 Report of Royal Coniviissioii on Education, Vol. Hi., Question 
57,667. 



TJic Brussels Ecole Modele 163 

encouragement to its universal adoption in our primary 
schools. And of drawing it may at least be said, that it 
is the one form of manual art most certainly educational 
in its aim and character, most generally applicable to 
all the business of life, and least likely to degenerate into 
mechanical routine. Carpentering, work in metal, or in 
paper, may easily, when the difficulty of handling tools 
has once been overcome, become very unintelligent and 
monotonous processes. But drawing and design afford 
infinite scope for new development and varied inven- 
tion. Whatever educational value they possess at first, 
they continue to possess as long as they are pursued at 
all. And this is more than can be safely said of many 
other forms of hand work. 

The chief points noticeable in all these exercises are : 
(i) That they are always connected with drawing, 
measurement, accurate knowledge, and some exercise in 
thinking; and are never isolated, or simply manual. 
(2) That they are superintended by the director of studies 
and co-ordinated with other work, not handed over to 
artizan specialists; and (3) that the manual exercises do 
not occupy more than two hours a week of the ordinary 
school course. They supplement the usual intellectual 
instruction, but are in no sense substitutes for it. 

I found, for each of the several forms of manual F.duca- 

exercise adopted in the Ecole Modele — for modelling, ^'^'^S^^ 

^ ° til flue nee 

for basket-making, for wood-carving, and for working '\\\ of manual 
metals — the teachers had been at the pains to make out '''''"""'''^' 
from tlie results of their experience a special tabulated 
report, showing the effect of the exercise on general 
power, on the habit of attention, on order, on cleanliness, 
on the aesthetic faculty, on physical vigour generally, 
and on manual skill. All the exercises did not profess 
to serve equally the same purpose, but each was found in 



164 Hand work and head zvork 

its own way to serve one or more of these purposes in 

different degrees. 

The tabulated statement of the results which is here 

given (p. 165) is not a little curious. 

The psv- Some larger principles than those affecting handi- 

cJiologual j-jggg Qj. nianual skill are involved when we proceed to 

reason for 

it^ inquire whether the modern demand for hand-culture is 

a passing fashion, or whether it is to be justified by a 
real insight into the philosophy of education, and the 
constitution and needs of human nature. I think there 
is a good answer to this question. A true psychology, 
when it comes to be applied to the practical business of 
teaching, shows us that the acquisition of knowledge is 
not the only means by which the human soul can be 
enriched and the future man provided with his outfit for 
the business of life. His training should, of course, 
enable him to know much that he would not otherwise 
know; but it should also enable him to see much that 
he would not otherwise see, and to do what he would not 
otherwise do. Books alone cannot fulfil this purpose. 
It is not only by receiving ideas, but by giving them 
expression, that we become the better for what we learn. 
A thought received, and not expressed or given out again 
in some form, can hardly be said to have been appro- 
priated at all. We have long recognized this truth within 
the limited area of book-study, for we demand of our 
pupils that they shall use a language as well as acquire 
it. But, after all, language is not the only instrument of 
expression. There are many other ways in which thought 
can find utterance. It may take the form of delineation, 
of modelling, of design, of invention, of some product of 
the skilled hand, the physical powers, or the finer sense. 
Of course, the value of any vehicle of expression depends 
entirely on what you have to express. If the mind is 



Educational results of uianual traiiujig 165 











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1 66 Hand work and Jicad work 



barren of ideas, there can be no worthy outcome, either 
through hand or voice. Ideas and materials for thinking 
are no doubt largely obtainable from books. But the 
study of form and colour is in its way as full of suggestion 
as the study of history. The love of the beautiful is as 
inspiring and ennobling a factor in human development 
as the love of the true. Drawing, representation, con- 
struction, and decorative work are educational processes 
as real and vital as reading and writing; they touch as 
nearly the springs of all that is best in human character. 
They may have results as valuable and as far-reaching. 
Professor Fiske has wisely said, — "In a very deep sense, 
all human science is but the increment of the power of 
the eye, and all human art is but the increment of the 
power of the hand. Vision and manipulation — these in 
countless, indirect, and transfigured forms, are the two 
co-operating factors in all intellectual progress." We may 
safely admit all this, and yet not lose sight of the fact 
that, after all, the main factors in both art and science 
are the intellectual power, the reflection, the number of 
ideas, the spiritual insight which lie behind the merely 
physical powers of vision and manipulation, and which 
give to those powers all their value. 
Variety of One of the strongest arguments which justify the 
ap I lu e. j.g^gj^^ popularity of manual training is that, by means of 
it, we are able to offer an opportunity for the development 
of special talents and aptitudes for which there is no 
adequate scope in the ordinary school course. Every 
school numbers among its scholars some who dislike 
books, who rebel against merely verbal and memory 
exercises, but who delight in coming into contact with 
things, with objects to be touched and shaped, to be 
built up and taken to pieces — in short, with the material 
realities of life. And a school system ought to be so 



[ \xricty of aptitude 1 6"] 



fashioned as to give full recognition to this fact. We 
cannot i)ciinit ourselves, of course, to be wholly domi- 
nated by the special preferences and tastes of indiviilual 
scholars; but we ought to allow them fuller scope than 
has usually been accorded to them in educational pro- 
grammes. Every wise teacher knows that in the most 
perverse and uninteresting scholar there are germs of 
goodness, aptitudes for some form of useful activity, some 
possibilities even of excellence, would men observingly 
distil them out: and that it is the duty of a teacher to 
discover these, encourage their development, and set 
them to work. Wc make a grave mistake if we suppose 
that all good boys should be good in one way, and that 
all scholars should be interested in the same things, and 
reach an c(pial degree of proficiency in all the subjects of 
our curriculum. This is, in fact, not possible. Nor, 
even if it were possible, would it be desirable. So one 
of the strongest arguments in favour of the recognition of 
manual and artistic exercises in our schools is, that by 
them we call into play powers and faculties not evoked 
by literary studies, and so give a better chance to the 
varied aptitudes of different scholars. School-boys do 
not always like the same things. The world would 
be a much less interesting world than it is if they did. 
A school course, therefore, should be wide enough, and 
diversified enough, to give to the largest possible number 
of scholars a chance of finding something which is attrac- 
tive to them, and which they will find pleasure in doing. 

I think, too, that a legitimate argument in favour of The 
more hand work in schools may be found in the fact that'/f "'^ 
by it we may, if it is wisely managed, overcome the 
frequent and increasing distaste of many young people for 
manual labour. In progressive countries there is often 
a vague notion that such labour is in some way servile 



1 68 Hand work and head work 



and undignified, and less respectable than employments 
of another kind. In America, especially, this feeling 
prevails even to a larger extent than in this country. 
Perhaps the stimulating climate, the general restlessness 
and eagerness with which life is carried on, the numerous 
opportunities for rapidly acquiring wealth, have had a 
tendency to discourage young and aspiring men and to 
repel them from handicrafts. There is much in our 
common conventional phraseology, which implies that 
physical labour has been imposed on man as a curse, 
and is a sign of his degradation.^ It is hard, under these 
conditions, to awaken in any active-minded community 
a true respect for the dignity of labour. How is it to be 
done ? Mainly, in my opinion, by associating manual work 
with intellectual work; by recognizing in our systems of 
education that all art, even the humblest, rests ultimately 
on a basis of science, and that hand work, when guided 
and controlled by knowledge, becomes ennobled, and 
takes a high rank among the liberal employments of life, 
even among the pursuits of a gentleman. Take a single 
example. A century or two ago blood-letting was part 
of the business of barber-surgeons. They were trades- 
men, and their trade was not one of the highest repute. 
But in time it came to be understood that the operation 
of bleeding was one which ought neither to be recom- 

1 Jeremy Taylor had learned a higher lore. " If it were not for 
labour, men neither could eat so much, nor relish so pleasantly, nor 
sleep so soundly, nor be so healthful nor so useful, so strong nor so 
patient, so noble nor so untempted. God hath so disposed of the 
circumstances of this curse, that man's affections are so reconciled to 
it, that they desire it and are delighted in it. And so the anger of 
God is ended in loving kindness; and the drop of water is lost in 
the full chalice of the wine; and the curse is gone (mt into a multi- 
plied blessing." (Sermon on the Miracles of the Divine Mercy.) 



Liviilatious to tJic value of manual exercise 169 

mendetl nor practised by any but a properly qualified 
surgeon; and the art, such as it was, ceased to belong to 
a trade and became part of a profession, and in this way 
lost all ignoble associations. And, in like manner, it is 
argued with some truth that, when you make manual 
dexterity and the right use of tools a part of general 
education, and duly connect it with a study of form, of 
beauty, of the properties of the materials employed, and 
of the laws of mechanical force, you are doing something 
to surround handicraft with new and more honourable 
associations, to disarm vulgar prejudice, and to impress 
the young with a true sense of the dignity of skilled 
labour. 

Such are some of the considerations which justify the I.imita- 
fuller recoij;nition of finger-traininej and sense-trainins '''/"" ''^ ''';'' 

^ ^ ^ & claims of 

generally as parts of a liberal education. But these very manual 
considerations are, at the same time, well calculated to '^'"""'"'^* 
warn us not to expect too much from such training if it 
is not duly co-ordinated with discipline of another kind. 
The true teacher will not seek to make physical train- 
ing a rival or competitor with intellectual exercise, but 
will desire rather to make the whole training of his pupil 
more harmonious. He will hold fast to the belief that, 
after all, mental culture is the first business of a school, 
and ought never to be permitted to become the second. 
The reaction from excessive bookishness, from the rather 
abstract character of mere scholastic teaching, is, on the 
whole, well justified. But the opposite of wrong is not 
always right; and it would be very easy to make a grave 
mistake by emphasizing too strongly the value of manual 
exercise, and making too great claims for it. 

What, after all, is the main function of the teacher 
who is seeking to give to his pupil a right training, and a 
proper outfit for the struggles and duties of life? It is, 



1 70 Hand ivork and Jiead zvork 

no doubt, to give a knowledge of simple arts, and of 
those rudiments of knowledge which, by the common 
consent of all parents and teachers, have been held to 
be indispensable; but it is also to encourage aspiration, 
to evoke power, and to place the scholar in the fittest 
possible condition for making the best of his own faculties 
and for leading an honourable and useful life. 

If this be so, we have to ask, what, among all pos- 
sible exercises and studies, are the most formative and 
disciplinal. It has been before shown that, by the law of 
what are called "concomitant variations," there is such a 
relation between powers and organs, that the cultivation 
of one leads, by a reflex action, to the strengthening of 
the other; you cannot, in fact, call into active exercise 
any one power without, pro tanto, making the exercise of 
other powers easier. But herewemust discriminate. This 
correlation and this mutual interchange of forces do not 
act uniformly. Take an example. You want, it may be, 
to give to a large number of recruits, none of whom have 
had any previous practice, a knowledge of military evolu- 
tions, the power to handle a rifle, and to do the duties 
of camp life. Say that half of them are clowns fresh 
from the plough, and the other half are men of similar 
age who have had a liberal education. Both groups are 
equally unfamiliar with what you have to teach, but there 
is no doubt as to which group will learn most quickly. 
The clowns will need hard work to bring them into 
discipline. They will misunderstand commands and be 
clumsy in executing them. The greater intelligence of 
the second group will be found to tell immediately on 
the readiness with which they see the meaning of the 
manoeuvres, and on the promptitude and exactness with 
which they perform them. Here the mental training has 
been a distinct help to the mere physical exercise. But 



LiDiitatLons to the value of iiianual exejxise i/i 



it cannot be said in like manner that the handicraftsman 
is a likelier person than another to take up intellectual 
labour with zest, and to be specially fitted to do it well. 
Intelligence helps labour much more than labour promotes 
intelligence. Nobody who knows the British workman 
would contend that the practice of a skilled industry — 
even though it be the successful practice — has carried 
him very far in the general education of his faculties and 
the development of his full power as a man and a citizen. 
Ever since the time when Socrates paid his memo- 
rable visit to the workshops of Athens, it has been a 
familiar fact of experience that your mere workman may, 
though skilled, be, so far as his understanding is con- 
cerned, a very poor creature, borne right and left by the 
traditions of his craft, and by rules of thumb, and with 
very confused and imperfect ideas about matters outside 
the region of his own trade. The truth is that the con- 
stant repetition of the same mechanical processes, when 
practice has enabled us to perform them without further 
thought, may be rather deadening than helpful to the 
personal intelligence and capability of the worker. The 
use of tools, though a good thing, is not the highest, nor 
nearly the highest thing to be desired in the outfit of a 
citizen for active life. The difference between a handy 
and an unhandy man is no doubt important all through 
life; but the difference between an intelligent, well-read 
man and another whose mind has been neglected, is fifty 
times more important, whatever part he may be called on 
to play hereafter. It is quite possible so to teach the use 
of tools that the teaching shall have little or no reflex 
action on other departments of human thought and 
activity, that it shall appeal little to the reflective, the 
imaginative, or the reasoning power, and that it may 
leave its possessor a very dull fellow indeed. 



1/2 Hand work and head work 

Let us revert for the moment to the experience of 
Socrates as it is recounted in the Apologia. " I betook 
myself," he says, "to the workshops of the artizans, for 
here, methought, I shall certainly find some new and 
beautiful knowledge, such as the philosophers do not 
possess. And this was true, for the workman could 
produce many useful and ingenious things." But he 
goes on to express his disappointment at the intellectual 
condition of the artizans; their bounded horizons, their 
incapacity for reasoning, their disdain for other know- 
ledge than their own, and the lack among them of any 
general mental cultivation or of any strong love of 
truth for its own sake. He thought that mere skill in 
handicraft and mere acquaintance with the materials, 
and with the physical forces employed in a trade, could 
carry a man no great way in the cultivation of himself 
and might leave him a very ill-educated person; that, 
in fact, the man was more important even than the 
mechanic or the trader, and that in order to be qualified 
for any of the employments of life, and to be prepared 
for all emergencies, mental training should go on side 
by side with the discipline needed for the bread-winning 
arts. 
Needle- We have at hand some more recent experience illus- 

work. trating the same truth. There has been for many years 
in our elementary schools one kind of manual and 
technical work specially subsidized by the State, and 
indeed enforced as an indispensable condition of receiv- 
ing any aid or recognition from the Education Depart- 
ment at all. I mean needlework in girls' schools. 
It fulfils for girls all the conditions which the advocates 
of technical instruction have in view for boys. It has 
unquestionable utility. It affords training for eye and 
hand. It demands attention, accuracy, and dexterity; 



Needlework 173 



and it has an economic value, as one of the means by 
which the home may be improved, and money earned. 
It enlists a good deal of sympathy among managers, and 
the Lady Bountiful or the vicar's wife in a country village 
is often well content to see the half of every school day 
spent, not indeed in learning to sew, but in manufactur- 
ing garments for home use or for sale. It is thought by 
many good people to be the most appropriate of all 
school exercises for girls. It looks so domestic, so 
feminine, so practical. Perhaps it may seem ungracious 
to enquire too curiously into the effect of this kind of 
exercise upon the general capacity of the scholars and 
upon the formation of their characters. But as a matter 
of fact, the exercise is often dull and mechanical; it keeps 
children dawdling for hours over the production of 
results which, with more skilful and intelligent teaching, 
might be produced in one-fourth of the time. The place 
in which the work is done becomes rather a factory 
than a school, and measures its usefulness rather by the 
number of garments it can finish than by the number of 
bright, handy, and intelligent scholars it can turn out. 
In fact, it is found that proficiency in needlework may 
co-exist with complete intellectual stagnation, and that 
the general cultivation of the children, their interest in 
reading and enquiring has been too often sacrificed to 
the desire for visible and material results. Some of the 
sewing is designated with curious irony, /<?;/r)' work, pjut 
there is little or no room in it for fancy or inventiveness, 
or even for the exercise of any originality or taste. So 
while fully conceding the importance of needlework as 
an integral part of the primary education of the girls in 
our schools, I think we are all interested in econo- 
mizing the time devoted to this work, in seeking to 
employ better methods of obtaining results, and above 



SIOJIS. 



1 74 Hand zvork and head work 

' all in remembering that the educational value of mere 
handiwork is in itself very limited, and that it ought to be 
supplemented by other discipline if we desire to make the 
best of our material and to send into the world capable 
and thoughtful women, ready for the varied duties of 
domestic and industrial life. 
General You will anticipate the inference, which from my own 

conclu- point of view, as an old inspector of schools and training 
colleges, I am inclined to deduce from these considera- 
tions. I entirely admit that our school instruction has 
long been too bookish, too little practical, and that 
the friends of technical instruction are fully justified in 
calling attention to the grave deficiencies in our system, 
especially to the want of sounder teaching in physical 
science, and of better training in the application of those 
sciences to the enrichment of the community and to the 
practical business of life. And we are all agreed, too, in 
the belief that apart from the industrial and economic 
results of better manual instruction, there may be in such 
instruction a high educational purpose, that it may tell 
on character, awaken dormant faculty, teach the better 
use of the senses, and increase the power of the human 
instrument over matter, and over the difficulties of life. 
This is the aspect of the problem which naturally is most 
interesting in the case of scholars who are not intending 
to get their living by manual industry. Only do not let 
us exaggerate the educational value of hand work or sup- 
pose that all our difficulties are to be solved by turning 
our schools into workshops. Without co-ordinate intel- 
lectual training and development, manual training will 
only accomplish a part, and not the highest part, of the 
work which lies before the teachers of the future. There 
are necessary limitations to its usefulness and it is 
expedient for us to recognize them. 



General conclusions 175 

As to those scholars who are likely hereafter to enter 
the industrial ranks as the less skilled or inferior workers, 
we have to bear in mind some of the special disadvantages 
which are conse(|uent upon modern industrial conditions. 
Division of labour, specialization of function in factories 
and workshops, improved machinery, are unquestionable 
advantages. They are economically valuable; they 
cheapen production, and we cannot do without them. 
But educationally they have a narrowing and hurtful 
effect. A boy or girl set to mind a machine, or feed it 
with bobbins, a man or woman required to concentrate 
the whole attention on some minute detail of manufac- 
ture or some one article of commerce, fails altogether to 
obtain that general knowledge of the whole of a trade or 
business which the obsolete system of apprenticeship 
demanded, and tended to encourage. He sees parts, he 
does not see the whole or the relation of his own restricted 
share of duty to anything larger than itself. He has 
therefore little or no motive for trying to improve 
methods, or for concerning himself with the general 
result. There is no scope for much intelligence or for 
any inventiveness in connexion with his labour. As 
Sir Philip Magnus has well said, "Production on a large 
scale has increased the demand for unskilled labour, 
and has had the effect of keeping the workman to one 
routine of mechanical industry, until some machine is 
devised to take his place." ^ Thus the very perfection 
to which machinery has been brought has reduced the 
human machine to a lower position, and has tended to 
make the work of the rank and file of artizans less 
interesting to themselves, less helpful in developing the 
best attributes of manhood, and less relatively important 
as an industrial factor. Since this result is inevitable, it 

^ EncyclopLcdia Britainiica. Article, " Tcclmical Education." 



I jG Hand work ami Jicad ivot'k 

behoves us to hold fast by all the means and opportunities 
of intellectual culture, which are compatible with the 
changed conditions of modern industrial life. 

There are at least two ways in which employers of 
labour and others who are interested in the career of 
manual workers can render effective service in the 
direction here indicated. The first of these is to aim at 
a higher standard of general knowledge and intellectual 
discipline in the schools from which technical institutions 
are recruited, and to insist on evidence of a solid ground- 
work of elementary acquirement as a condition precedent 
to the admission of any candidate into the apprentice 
school or the technical institute. 

And a second duty is to urge, whenever possible, 
upon each of the young people in trade and evening 
classes, that he should take up one subject at least — it 
may be history, mathematics, philosophy, poetry, litera- 
ture, or a foreign language — which has no direct or 
visible relation to his trade or to the means whereby he 
hopes to get a living, but is simply chosen because he likes 
it, because his own character is enriched and strength- 
ened by it, because it helps to give him a wider outlook 
upon the world of nature, of books, and of men, and 
because he may thus prepare himself better for the duties 
of a citizen and a parent, as well as for an honoured 
place in the ranks of industry. 



LECTURE VI 

ENDOWMENTS AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON 
EDUCATION ' 

^'urgot and the Encyclopi'die. Charitable foundations in France. 
Avoidable antl unavoidable evils. Almshouses. Religious 
charities: Tests and disqualifications. Colston's Charity in 
Bristol. The Girard College in Philadelphia. Charities 
with restricted objects. Doles. Illegal bequests and useless 
charities. Educational charities. The early Grammar Schools. 
Charity Schools. Contrast between the educational endow- 
ments of the sixteenth and those of the eighteenth century. 
Causes of decadence. Iniluence on the teachers. The En- 
dowed Schools Act of 1869. Origin of charitable endowments. 
The ecjuitable rights of founders. The State interested in 
maintaining these rights. Endow ments may encourage variety 
and new experiments : but sometimes jnevent improvement. 
Conditions of vitality in endowed institutions: — That the 
object should be a worthy one : that the mode of attaining it 
should not be too rigidly prescribed. The Johns Hopkins 
University. Sir Josiah Mason's foundations. Supervision and 
needful amendment the duty of the State. Constitution of 
governing bodies. Publicity. Summary of practical conclu- 
sions. England and America. 

In a memorable article entitled "Fondations," con- Turgot 
tributed by Turgot to the French Encyclopi'die in ^ISl ']T /,'f . 
but for some unexplained reason — either modesty, or Xhtpcdie. 
fear of identifying himself in too pronounced a manner 

^ This lecture was delivereil in the Pennsylvania University at 
the Annual Meeting uf the College Association of Philadelphia. 
N 177 



1 78 Riidozvuicnts and tJicir iufliicucc on Education 

with the enemies of vested interests — not acknowledged 
by him until many years after, there is a forcible and 
thoughtful argument respecting endowments and their 
practical effect. He contends that the motive which 
leads a founder to perpetuate his own name and his own 
notions is often to be traced to mere vanity. The testa- 
tor, he says, is apt to be ignorant of the nature of the 
problem he desires to solve and of the best way of solving 
it. He is seldom gifted with a wise foresight of the 
future and of its wants. He puts into his deed of gift 
theories, projects and restrictions which are found by his 
successors to be utterly unworkable. He seeks to propa- 
gate opinions which posterity disbelieves and does not 
want. He takes elaborate precautions against dangers 
which never arise. He omits to guard against others 
which a little experience shows to be serious and inevit- 
able. He assumes that his own convictions and his own 
enthusiasm will be transmitted to subsequent generations 
of trustees and governors, when in fact he is only placing 
in their way a sore temptation, at best to negligence and 
insincerity, at worst to positive malversation and corrup- 
tion. In fine, Turgot shows by an appeal to history that 
endowments often foster and keep alive many of the very 
evils they profess to remedy, and that instead of enrich- 
ing and improving posterity, they not seldom liave the 
direct effect of demoralizing it. 
Charitable T\\Q fo/idafions d peipctititl' which Turgot had in view 
Jo It IK a- ^yj^gj-^ \^Q wrote this remarkable essay were hospitals, 

tlOllS III J I ' 

Irance. convents, religious houses, masses, academies, professor- 
ships, prizes, the encouragement of games and sports, and 
other forms of public benefaction. He did not object on 
principle to large and generous gifts for such purposes, 
but it was indispensable, he contended, that such gifts 
should be made and expended in the donor's lifetime, 



Avoidable aud unavoidable evils 179 

and adapted to present needs rather tlian to conjectural 
and [)ossibly mistaken forecasts of future events. His 
whole argument is directed against the perpetuation of 
rules and ordinances, not against their enactment by 
benefactors who coukl watch their operation and see that 
they were obeyed. Had he lived a century later he 
might have found the most striking confirmation of his 
views in the history of endowments in England. A few 
of these he would have seen were of undoubted public 
utility, but a great many existed for objects which were 
manifestly mischievous; others were kept up rather in 
tiie interests of those who administered them than of 
those for whom the original charity was intended; others 
were designed as permanent remedies for evils which in 
the course of time had wholly disappeared; while others, 
though contemj)lating lawful and even laudable ends, 
sought to attain them by means so antiquated and 
cumbrous that they were utterly useless. In short, every 
successive generation has enriched the history of charities 
with new examples and new warnings. These things are 
written for our instruction. They ought to enable men 
better than in the age of Turgot to discriminate between 
the wise and the foolish, the useless and the mischievous 
forms of charitable endowment. 

For example, there is no more important distinction Avoidable 
to be kept in view by the truly charitable than that''"'.'/"', 
between avoidable evils and those which are inevitable, evils. 
Poverty and all its attendant ills belong to the former 
class. They cannot always be remedied. Hut within 
certain limits they are always ])reventable. With more 
skill, more industry and more prudence they might in 
most cases have been avoided. Yet ])overty, as we 
know, is one of the commonest and most conspicuous 
of human misfortunes, and it is the one to the cure of 



1 80 Endozvmcnts and tJieir influence on Education 

which charity of tenest addresses itself. A benevolent man 
is distressed as he sees the evidences of it all around 
him, and he longs to alleviate it. He is unwilling to see 
that his gifts will probably produce more poverty than 
they will heal. For they may help to diminish, in the 
class from which the recipients are drawn, the spirit of 
self-control and independence, and to give a new motive 
for idleness to the unthrifty and the vicious. It may be 
that in early life he has experienced the inconveniences 
of poverty, and in later life the relief and blessing of 
competence. He desires that others who have reached 
the later stage of their journey should enjoy, as he has 
done, the tranquillity and freedom from care which 
beseem old age. It may seem ungracious to remind him 
that he himself has earned his repose by strenuous exer- 
tion and self-denial, and that it is this one fact which 
entitles him to his r-est, and gives dignity and appro- 
priateness to it. Yet it is needful that he should con- 
sider this, for unless he takes many and wise precautions, 
his gift may be the means of preventing other men from 
following his own excellent example; and may, not 
improbably, be appropriated by idle and shiftless loafers 
who have never earned the right to honourable retire- 
ment, and in whose case old age is without dignity and 
repose without charm. 
Alms- There is, for example, no form of posthumous charity 

which appeals more impressively at once to the imagina- 
tion and to the benevolent instinct than an Almshouse or 
Home for the aged. Pope says admiringly of Kyrle, the 
philanthropist of his day, well known as the Man of Ross : 

" Behold the market place with poor o'erspread, 
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread; 
He feeds yon almshouse neat, devoid of state, 
Where age and want sit smiling at the gate." 



houses. 



AbiisJiouses i8i 



This pretty picture is one which to the superficial 
observer is not without attraction, although it cannot fail 
to bring into some minds the suspicion that the town of 
Ross, after all, was likely to become the refuge of mendi- 
cants from all the country side. However, one sees in 
many a town in England a quaint and picturesque build- 
ing, with its quadrangular court-yard, its many gables and 
its chg^l, all dedicated to the repose and sustenance of 
old peopTe, the decayed members of a trade, a guild or a 
iiiunicipality. But one enters the precincts and finds 
too often a querulous and unhappy community, chafing 
under religious and social restraints which are foreign to 
all their previous habits, and distracted by small jealousies 
and quarrels. The truth is that a community of old 
people who have nothing in common but their age and 
their poverty is a wholly artificial product of so-called 
benevolence. And it is not a satisfactory product, be- 
cause it is not founded on a true estimate of the needs of 
old age. Nature would rather teach us that the proper 
home for old people is among the young and the happy, 
from whom, on the one hand, they may receive pleasure 
and cheerfulness, and to whom they may in turn impart 
what is best in their own experience. This view receives 
striking confirmation from the history of Greenwich 
Hospital, a stately institution of which Englishmen have 
been for two centuries not a little proud. It occupies a 
lordly site on the Thames. Macaulay designated it "the 
noblest of European hospitals, a memorial of the virtues 
of the good Queen Mary, of the love and sorrow of 
William, and of the great victory of La Hogue." Until 
recently this great palatial institution sheltered i,6oo old 
seamen, who were maintained at a total annual cost of 
about ;({^i 25,000, or more than ^75 per man. About 



1 82 Endoivnicnts and tJieii' influence on Education 

half of this sum, however, was found on inquiry to be 
consumed in expenses of management. The seamen of 
the better class were unwilling to enter the hospital 
owing to the domestic restraints which the discipline 
of the institution imposed, and because they were 
unwilling to sacrifice the friendships and associations 
of their lives. When these facts were brought to 
light, a measure was passed in 1865 enabling the 
Admiralty to offer to the sailors as an alternative to 
residence in the hospital a moderate pension, with liberty 
to reside with their own relatives. The annuity was fixed 
at ^45. The proposal was at once gladly embraced by 
two-thirds of the inmates, and it is greatly preferred by 
all the new pensioners. Since the change was made 
there has been considerable improvement in the health 
of the men, and the annual death-rate has been much 
reduced. The sum saved by abandoning the more 
picturesque for the more prosaic and practical form of 
benevolence has nearly sufTficed to double the number of 
seamen assisted by the charity. 
Religious There are in England many endowments impressed 
strongly with a religious character, and designed for the 
double purpose of relieving distress and of promoting 
the interests of the religious body to which the founder 
happened to belong. One need not go far to seek the 
reasons for the existence of such foundations. A man 
who is earnestly attached to his own communion feels 
himself in special sympathy with the needs of his fellow- 
worshippers and prefers them to any other recipients of 
such bounty as he may have to bestow. What more 
natural than that he should bequeath gifts of clothes or 
doles of bread to be distributed among those who attend 
the services of his own church! What more reasonable 



charities. 



Rc/igioNS charities 183 

than for him to suppose that in this way he is not only 
helping the poor, but that he is also encouraging them 
to feel an interest in the religious worship which he most 
approves ! But soon a result occurs which he probably 
has not foreseen. Claimants for his bounty come to the 
church and profess conformity to its creed, for the sake 
of obtaining his gifts. I know a London clergyman who 
found on entering upon his duties a number of poor 
people regularly coming on Sunday to receive the Sacra- 
ment. This seemed to him a gratifying incident in a 
parish in which there was a good deal of religious apathy 
and other discouragements. He expressed to the clerk 
his pleasure at seeing so many poor communicants. 
"Oh, sir," was the reply, "of course they come for 
the doles. It has long been our custom to distribute 
the parochial charities only to those who partake of the 
Lord's Supper." 'i'he new vicar was shocked, and desired 
it to be made known that for the future attendance at 
the Sacrament would not be regarded as constituting any 
claim on the charities, and that absence from it would 
be no disqualification, but that all future claims on the 
fund would be inquired into on their own merits, and 
without any reference to church attendance. From that 
day not one of these applicants has ever come to church 
to receive the Sacrament. Cases like this may well 
remind us how fatal to true religion, as well as to true 
charity, is any attempt to make the distribution of alms 
serve even indirectly as a religious propaganda. All 
bounties and premiums on the profession of belief have 
an inevitable tendency to profane and vulgarize sacred 
ordinances, and to encourage insincere religious pro- 
fession, if not actual hypocrisy and falsehood. 

In the history of civil institutions in Kncfland, ex- '^'^^'^'^'^^^ 
, , , . , . fc ' tests and 

perience has revealed to us the mischief and even the religious 



184 Endowments and tJieir inflnence on Education 

disquali- profanity of religious tests. It was during a century and 
fications. ^ j^^j^ ^ national scandal that the Test and Corporation 
Acts, and all the formidable penalties of the Clarendon 
Code, made conformity to the Established Church, 
signing the Thirty-Nine Articles, or participation in eu- 
charistic services indispensable to the holding of offices. 
One by one all such Acts have, during the present cen- 
tury, been repealed, and the ancient universities have 
been freed from the necessity of imposing subscription 
to the Articles or other religious tests on candidates for 
degrees. But although Parliament has not hesitated to 
rectify the mistakes of its predecessors, it has always 
shown reluctance to interfere with the legislation of 
private founders, and accordingly we have seen illiberal 
and mischievous regulations surviving in charitable insti- 
tutions long after the good sense and practical experi- 
ence of statesmen have succeeded in removing similar 
regulations from the Statute Book. Let me give to you 
two illustrations of this assertion, the one drawn from an 
educational foundation in my own country, and the other 
from one in this city of Philadelphia. 

Colston's Early in the eighteenth century there lived in Bristol 

cJiay^ty tn ^j^g Edward Colston, who, at his death, made large 
Bristol. . . ' ' . . ° 

bequests to his native city. To this day his memory is 

revered by the citizens, and pious orgies in his honour 

are annually celebrated on his birthday. Among other 

good works he founded a hospital-school. He was a 

very zealous member of the Established Church, and he 

was determined that his new foundation should subserve 

the interests of that boeiy. Tn his deed he not only gave 

orders respecting the learning of the Catechism and the 

diligent attendance of the children at church twice on every 

Sunday and saints' days, but further ordained that the 

apprentice fee to be given to a boy on leaving school should 



Colston and Girard 185 

be paid only if the master to whom he was bound was 
" in all respects conformable to the Established Church." 

He further ordered that "in case the parents of any 
boy in the hospital shall prevail on him to go or be 
present at any conventicle or meeting ott pretence of 
religious zuorship, or by word or action prevail with or 
deter any child from attending the public worship accord- 
ing to the religion established in the Church of England, 
then it shall be lawful for the trustees to expel such child 
and to take away his clothing." He proceeds to add 
several minatory clauses addressed to any possible future 
trustees who should consent to the education of the boys 
in any but the fashion thus prescribed, " it being entirely 
contrary to my inclinations that any of the boys should 
be educated in fanaticism, or in principles any way 
repugnant to those of the present Established Church." 
These ordinances were carried out in all their rigour from 
1708 until the enactment of the Endowed Schools Act 
of 1869, under which a scheme was framed revoking 
many of the trusts, and releasing the trustees from any 
obligation to give effect to those of the founders' wishes 
which were plainly out of harmony with the needs and 
the circumstances, and, indeed, with the public con- 
science of the nineteenth century. 

In this city of Philadelphia you have a very noble and T/ie 
richly endowed hospital, called Girard College, which, rJ//J^l, ^,, 
in its own way, illustrates the point now under discussion. Philadel- 
When I went to visit it I was asked first if I was a^"'^' 
minister of religion, and a copy of an extract from the 
will of Stephen Girard, the founder, was put into my 
hands: "I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, mis- 
sionary or minister of any sect whatsoever shall ever 
hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said 
College, nor shall any such person ever be admitted as 



1 86 E7idoiv})icnts and their influence on Education 

a visitor within the premises appropriated to the said 
College." Now it is quite certain that if such an ordi- 
nance as this had at any time been enacted by the State 
legislature, or laid down by a Court, it would have been 
repealed long ago. Common sense, right feeling and 
experience would have shown its absurdity. JBut because 
Stephen Girard is beyond reach, and there are no means 
of consulting him and convincing him of its absurdity, 
and because the superstition which attaches inordinate 
sacredness to founders' intentions is prevalent in the New 
World as well as in the Old, whatever evil he may have 
done by this ordinance of his is practically irremediable. 
And I suppose this splendid foundation will for years to 
come be deprived of the services and the sympathy of 
many persons whose aid would be much valued by the 
trustees if they were at liberty to invoke it; and that 
■ regulations will continue to be in force which are a stand- 
ing and public insult to all the ministers of religion, 
and which will cause thousands of children at the most 
impressionable period of their lives to be alienated not 
only from communion with Christian Churches, but 
from religion itself. 
Charities It frequently happens that a fund is left with strict 

^'f',. , injunctions that it shall be applied for ever to a very 
objects. limited purpose; and in due time the fund is augmented 
till its amount is out of all proportion to the need it is 
intended to supply. I know a village in England to 
which a former inhabitant bequeathed the rent of a small 
estate with directions that it should be annually spent in 
gifts to the poor widows of the parish. Time went on, a 
valuable vein of brick earth was found on the estate, the 
annual income was increased nearly ten-fold; but the 
population of the village remained stationary. That is 
to say, it would have remained so but for an extensive 



Doles 1 8; 

immigration of widows from the neighbouring towns and 
villa<^es, who have contrived to dislocate all the social 
arrangements of the little parish, and to introduce into it 
a disturbing and not always reputable element. The 
trustees were embarrassed, and after a long time sought 
relief from the Legislature, with power to enlarge and 
vary the trusts. But this was a strong and very unpopular 
measure; the claimants technically entitled under the 
founder's will, though as a class they were probably 
lowered and demoralized by his gifts, loudly proclaimed 
their right to receive them; and long before the trusts 
were altered grave evils had arisen, and the whole 
district had learned to look on the endowment as a 
curse rather than a blessing. 

Dole funds and small charities for distribution among Doles 
the poor have been very favourite forms of benevolence, 
and they are to be found in hundreds of English parishes. 
Everywhere they are the despair of the clergy and of all 
who have the real interests of the labouring class at 
heart. These gifts, it has been repeatedly shown, pau- 
perize the people and destroy their sense of shame. 
One witness adds: "The poor people spend more time 
looking after such gifts than would suffice to gain the 
same sums by industry." In a remarkable speech, in the 
House of Commons, in 1863, Mr Gladstone said: "The 
dead hand of the founder of an annual dole does not 
distinguish between the years of prosperity among the 
labouring classes and years of distress: in prosperous 
years it leads those who are not in need to represent 
themselves to be so; it holds out annual hopes to im- 
providence, it more frequently excites jealousy and ill- 
feeling than good-will, both on the part of the recipients 
towards the distributors of the charity, and among the 
recipients themselves. For one person who receives 



1 88 Endowments and their injlnence on Edncation 

substantial benefit from these doles, many feel their 
demoralizing effect." 

It would be an endless task to enumerate the various 
forms of charitable endowment which subsequent experi- 
ence has shown to be either useless or positively harmful. 
One man provides a house for lepers and an estate the 
income of which is to be devoted for ever to the mainte- 
nance of that house. Another bequeaths a large sum 
for the redemption of prisoners taken captive by pirates 
on the Barbary coast. Now it is plain that when it 
comes to pass that there are no lepers to be found in the 
country, and that Barbary pirates have ceased to infest 
the Mediterranean, there arises the need for some new 
disposition of the testator's bounty. But long after that 
day arrives it is found that there are persons concerned 
more or less with the administration of the fund, and 
interested in its continuance, who plead that perchance 
the evil provided against by the founder may re-appear, 
and that meanwhile it is a sin and sacrilege to divert 
the fund to objects which he did not specify. 
lUegaland There are some forms of posthumous gifts which, 
use ess tenderly as the English law regards the will of testators, 
are nevertheless held to be illegal and inconsistent with 
public policy. A sum of money bequeathed to pay the 
fines of offenders under the game laws was held to be an 
invalid charity, because it directly encouraged a breach 
of the law. Another bequest providing funds for the 
political restoration of the Jews to Jerusalem, to their 
own land, was ruled by the judges to be illegal, because, 
if carried into effect, it was calculated to create a revolu- 
tion in a friendly country and to embroil the English with 
the Ottoman Empire. At the Reformation, and after- 
wards, many statutes were enacted declaring void all gifts 
for '' superstitious uses," a term which has been variously 



Illegal and useless charities 1 89 

interpreted within the last three centuries, according to 
the degrees of toleration prevalent at the time, but which 
still extends in England to masses, and to prayers for 
the dead. On the other hand, so great a sacredness has 
attached in England to the intentions of founders, that 
many bequests have been accepted and scrupulously 
observed, which nevertheless it would obviously be the 
interest of the community to reject. A foundling hospital 
offers a direct encouragement to illegitimate births. A 
permanent dole fund tempts poor people to falsehood or 
to exaggeration, and its very existence diminishes one 
of the motives of thrift and self-restraint. An apprentice 
fund which was once well adapted to the industrial needs 
of the community continues to exist long after the system 
of apprentice premiums has been abolished in ordinary 
trade. Such funds are found in practice to furnish in 
disguise a charitable dole to certain parents and to be 
of no service whatever in qualifying children to become 
skilled artizans. At a small village in Yorkshire I found 
an endowment of nearly ^Tiooo a year carefully ad- 
ministered in precise accordance with the will of the 
founder, who two hundred years ago had enjoined his 
executors to see that the letter R, the initial of his own 
name, should be conspicuously embroidered on the dress 
of all the recipients of his bounty. His injunctions were 
still obeyed. Three old men, three old women and 
twelve boys walked about the village thus decorated, in 
pious remembrance of their venerated founder, and on 
his birthday listened annually to a sermon extolling his 
merits. In all these, and hundreds of similar cases, 
endowments characterized from the first by vanity, by 
want of true foresight, and by their tendency to aggravate 
the very evils they profess to remedy, have been per- 
mitted to survive whatever of usefulness they originally 



190 Endoiv 111 cuts and their iiifliience on Education 

possessed. Eripiiur persona, manet res. The property 
remainSj the short-sighted regulations of a past century 
continue in force; but the intelligent direction, the spirit 
of genuine philanthropy which would probably have 
modified these regulations, has disappeared, and the 
men of this generation are half reluctant, half unable to 
find an effective substitute for it. 
Educa- But it is in regard to the history of education in 

charities England that some of the most remarkable and instruc- 
tive lessons have been furnished to us as to the working 
of the principle of endowment. Here, at least, we seem 
to be in a region in which there is less danger of abuse. 
Poverty, destitution, crime, are, it may be admitted, evils 
that may be fostered and increased by gifts which are 
clumsily designed to prevent them. But ignorance is an 
evil which admits of a remedy, and which he who suffers 
from it cannot always remedy without help. Nobody 
voluntarily becomes ignorant in order that he may share 
a gift intended to provide him with knowledge. In 
establishing universities or schools for the young, and 
in providing instruction of a quality which the parent 
would be unable to procure for his children, the pious 
founder would seem at least to be on safer ground, and 
to be in a position to render a real service to his country. 
And as a fact, some of the noblest foundations in England 
are its universities and public schools. They have, on 
the whole, originated in higher motives, and their 
founders have been animated by a more enlightened 
perception of the public interest than charities of almost 
any other kind. But a brief glance at their history 
will show that even here the incurable vices that are 
wont to breed in all foundations have thriven hardly 
less than elsewhere — stagnation, corruption, negligence, 
and a fatal incapacity to adapt themselves to the 



The early Grammar Scliools 191 

changed circumstances and needs of successive genera- 
tions. 

The ancient "grammar schools" of England owe 77ie early 
their origin mainly to the Tudor period. Before the '^'^''^""'^'^^^ 
accession of Henry VIII there were but thirty-five such 
institutions in England, including Eton, Carlisle and 
Winchester, and a few others, which had been founded 
as chantries, or were otherwise connected with ecclesias- 
tical establishments. But it was the dissolution of the 
jnonasteries which at once gave the impetus to the 
establishment of such schools, and furnished the means 
of sustaining them. And it is a fortunate circumstance 
for England that the same event which set free large 
resources for these special uses happened to coincide 
with the revival of learning, with the Protestant Reforma- 
tion and with the quickening of intellectual energy and 
of the spirit of inquiry throughout the land. During 
successive generations, down to the period of the Civil 
War, nearly eight hundred "grammar school" founda- 
tions were created. One uniform purpose is manifest in 
the testaments, the deeds of gift and the early statutes 
by which the character of these schools was intended to 
be shaped. It is to encourage the pursuit of a liberal 
education founded on the ancient languages — then the 
only studies which had been so far formulated and 
systematized as to possess a disci plinal character. It is 
almost invariably stipulated in the instrument of founda- 
tion that the master is to be a learned man; that he 
shall be apt and godly, qualified to instruct in good 
letters and good manners; and that he shall receive as 
his pupils children of all ranks. 

But it is notable that by the end of the seventeenth Charity 
century a great change seems to have come over the ^'■''"■'"^^^■ 
minds of testators and benevolent ])eople in regard to 



192 Endoivmeiits and their influence on Education 

this matter of education. The endowed schools, which 
ow^e their origin to this period, aim no longer at the 
general diffusion of a liberal education, or at the en- 
couragement of all classes in the common pursuit of 
knowledge and culture. They are for a limited number 
of the poor, but for the poor alone. They are designed 
rather to repress than to stimulate intellectual ambition; 
and, consciously or unconsciously, they were adapted 
less to bring rich and poor together than to set up new 
barriers between them. There has been no period of 
our history in which the social separation of classes has 
been more marked and more jealous than at the begin- 
ning of the eighteenth century. The disappearance of 
the last vestiges of feudalism, under the legislation of 
Charles II and of William, synchronized with the steady 
growth among the upper and middle classes of a kind of 
social and religious conservatism, which was none the 
less strong because the legal securities for its mainte- 
nance were passing away. The Act of Uniformity had 
been designed to crush out Dissent. The Toleration Act 
of the next generation was in fact a legal admission that 
this design had failed, and that Nonconformity was a 
force which must now be recognized. To the resolute 
Churchmen of the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
to such men as Edward Colston, of whom I have already 
spoken, and Robert Nelson, the author of the " Fasts 
and Festivals," this was a sad and ominous fact, and 
they and their friends sought to neutralize its effect by 
more diligent teaching of the liturgy and formularies of 
the Church of England in schools for the poor. The 
prevalence of Dissent, it w^as feared, would imperil the 
social order. A fear lest the poor should be encouraged 
by it to forget the duties of their station and to encroach 
upon the privileges of the rich is very evident in much 



Later educational endoivuuiits 193 

of the literature and some of the legislation of the age. 

And there is no more significant token of the changed 

feeling with which the rich had come to regard the poor 

than the simple fact that, whereas in the sixteenth 

century Englishmen founded grammar schools, in the 

eighteenth they founded charity schools. 

Schools of the latter class rapidly multiplied during Contrast 

the last century and the beginning of the present. They '''^^^^^^ 

^ '^ "- ^ ■' the eauca- 

are founded on a conception of education partly religious Honal en- 

and partly feudal, but almost wholly ignoble and humili- ''''''^'wt-w/^ 

, . ., . of the 

ating, and some of them exist to our own day in ^ixiKin^ sixteenth 

contrast to the grammar school foundations of earlier ^'"^^-'^'^-^^ 

^ . oj the 

generations. The charity school children were to hQ eighteenth 

sedulously discouraged from learning more than was sup- '^'^'^''"''/• 
posed to be necessary for the discharge of the humblest 
duties of life. But the scholars in the grammar schools 
were either to be the sons of gentlemen, or were to be 
treated as such. They were to be brought within the 
reach of the highest cultivation that the nation can 
afford; they were to be encouraged to proceed from 
school to the universities; and special provision was 
always made to tempt into this higher region of learning 
and gentleness the child of the yeoman and the peasant, 
in order that, if quickwitted and diligent, he too might 
be trained up to serve God in Church and State. 

Yet upon nearly all these institutions alike the curse 
of barrenness seems to have fallen. An official investi- 
gation, in which it was my duty to take an active share 
in 1865, extended over the whole country and revealed 
the fact that nearly all these schools, whether designed to 
furnish a liberal education, or only to give to the " hewers 
of wood and drawers of water" the humble training 
supposed to be needed in order to fit them for the 
meanest duties, were in a lamentnble state of decay and 
o 



194 llndoivments mid the 17' inJliLcnce on Edncation 

inefficiency. The body of testimony obtained by the 
" Schools Inquiry Commission " is especially conclusive 
in regard to the endowed Grammar Schools. The build- 
ings and school furniture were, in a majority of cases, 
most unsatisfactory; the number of scholars who were 
obtaining the sort of education in Latin and Greek con- 
templated by the founders was very small, and was 
constantly diminishing; the general instruction in other 
subjects was found to be very worthless, the very existence 
of statutes prescribing the ancient learning often serving 
as a reason for the absence of all teaching of modern 
subjects; and, with a few honourable exceptions, the 
endowed schools were found, in 1865 — 7, to be character- 
ized by inefficient supervision on the part of the govern- 
ing bodies and by languor and feebleness on the part of 
teacljers and taught. I know no more melancholy chapter 
in English history than is supplied by the ponderous 
volumes of the Schools Inquiry Commission. It is a 
history of great resources wasted, of high hopes frus- 
trated, and of means and plans wholly unsuited to the 
ends proposed to be attained. 
Causes of When the causes of this decadence came to be 
investigated, it was found that much of it was owing to 
the faulty constitution of the trusts. Some were close 
corporations of private friends, with power of perpetual 
renewal by co-optation; some were small bodies of 
vestrymen; others were municipal or trading companies, 
wholly destitute of educational experience. In some the 
trustees were too remote from the place to have any 
vital interest in the welfare of the charity; in others they 
were so closely identified with the town or village that 
they were incapable of taking a general view of the 
interests of the whole district and of its educational 
wants. In all, they were isolated from each other, self- 



iecadence. 



Injinoicc on the teachers 195 

4 . 

controlled, and often practically self-constituted, without 
motive for activity, or any external aid or guidance as 
to the form which a wise activity should assume. The 
masters generally held freehold offices and were practi- 
cally not removeable, even for serious inefficiency, with- 
out costly litigation. Above all, the governing bodies 
were in every case hampered by traditions, by founders' 
wills and statutory provisions, which they could not 
carry out if they would, but which effectually prevented 
them from making any organic improvement. 

And the pressure of the dead hand on the teachers Influence 
was not less heavy. One can understand and respect ^^''Jy^J^._^ 
the position of a schoolmaster who takes his stand 
resolutely J- ///<^;' vias aniiquas, who refuses to be beguiled 
by modern innovations into a neglect of the clearly 
expressed will of the school founder, and who steadfastly 
narrows his own aims in the direction of an ideal of 
scholarship, which he has learned from Ascham, from 
Milton, or from Busby. And one may view, not with- 
out respect, though perhaps with less sympathy, the 
teacher who, finding the ancient grammar school theory 
hopelessly untenable, determines to disregard it alto- 
gether, and to lay himself out to meet the importunate 
and not always intelligent demands of a restless and 
mercantile age. But the saddest part of the experience 
of the Commissioners appears to have been the discovery 
that four-fifths of the endowed schools were fulfilling 
neither the one purpose nor the other; and that the 
whole machinery, while in some cases producing positive 
mischief, by occupying the ground and preventing the 
establishment of good modern schools, was even in the 
best cases yielding results sadly inadequate to its costli- 
ness, and unsuited to the educational wants of the com- 
munity for whose benefit it was designed. 



196 Endoivments and their injluejice on Education 

The These evils have been to a large extent remedied. 

Scliods ^^^ revelations of the Schools Inquiry Commissioners 
Act of led, in 1869, to the establishment of a new Executive 
i8bg. Commission, with large powers to alter the schemes of 
instruction, to reconstruct the governing bodies, to set 
free funds for providing scholarships and exhibitions, 
and generally to bring the endowed schools into harmony 
with modern needs. But it required a very drastic and 
revolutionary Act of Parliament to effect this — an Act 
which shocked many prejudices, and was passed not 
without difhculty; which came into rude conflict with 
many venerable and touching local associations, and 
which could not in fact have been enacted at all had not 
the evils of the old state of things become intolerable. 
The Commission which reported in 1894 furnished 
ample evidence of the beneficent effect of this Act and 
recommended the continuance and even the enlargement 
of the powers possessed by public authority to remedy 
such evils. It showed, too, that the public was being 
reconciled, far more than it was in 1869, to the freer 
handling by the- State in regard to ancient trusts. But 
this occasional legislation is not that which a wise states- 
man prefers, or contemplates with any satisfaction. It is 
not by the periodical removal of a mountain of accu- 
mulated abuses, but by such prudent provisions as shall 
prevent abuses from accumulating that the true interests 
of the body politic are best secured. And we shall be 
helped to understand the nature of those provisions if 
we look a little further into the origin and the practical 
working of endowments generally. 
Origin of It were to inquire too curiously, to peer into the 
ciaritable j^Q^-jygg in which endowments originate. Mr Lecky 

endow- ° _ -' 

menis. in his History of European Morals has shown that in 
very early Christian ages the substitution of devotion for 



Origin of charitable cndozvnients igy 

philanthropy generated a belief in the expiatory or meri- 
torious nature of eleemosynary gifts. " A love of what 
may be called selfish charity arose," he says, "which 
assumed at last gigantic proportions, and exerted a most 
pernicious influence upon Christendom. Men gave 
money to the poor simply and exclusively for their own 
spiritual benefit, and the welfare of the sufferer was alto- 
gether foreign to their thoughts." And it must be owned 
that Christian teachers in all ages have done much to 
encourage the belief that almsgiving and charitable 
foundations were a profitable form of investment. "Spare 
not," says Sir Thomas Browne, "when thou canst not 
easily be prodigal, and fear not to be undone by mercy; 
for since he who hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the 
Almighty rewarder, who observes no ides but every day 
for his payments, charity becomes pious usury. Christian 
liberality the most thriving industry, and what we adven- 
ture in a cock-boat may return in a carrack to us. He 
who thus casts his bread upon the waters shall surely find 
it again. " ^ Considerations of this cynical kind have been 
urged with more or less of insistence upon rich people 
in all ages, and have been found so potent, especially in 
the near approach of death, that society, notwithstanding 
its general approval of charity in all its forms, has been 
compelled in its own defence to enact from time to time 
laws of moriniain, forbidding the permanent alienation 
of lands to quasi-religious or charitable uses within a 
year before the donor's death. But when once the gift 
has taken legal effect the English law, and still more the 
I^nglish custom, have always been in favour of treating 
with special sacredness and reverence the intentions and 
dispositions of the giver. And thus it would seem that, 
we actually elevate to the rank of legislators a body of 
1 Religio MeJiii. 



198 Endowments and their infinence on Education 

men who have had no other qualification to exercise 
such a function than is represented by the accident that 
they had money to dispose of. Much of the education 
of England, and many of its most important public and 
social interests have, during many centuries, been domi- 
nated by a code of laws which has never been deliberately 
sanctioned by the legislature, but is the creation of a 
number of amateur statesmen, few of whom possessed 
much political foresight, and most of whom were destitute 
of any strong sense of reponsibility to the public. Yet 
it is to this parliament of dead men, self-constituted, 
heterogeneous and sometimes incompetent, that we have 
been accustomed to pay as much deference and to assign 
as much real power as to King, Lords and Commons 
put together. We have dealt more tenderly with its 
caprices, we have sought more anxiously to interpret its 
utterances, and we have been in far greater dread of over- 
ruling or revoking its decisions. The explanation of the 
deep-rooted instinct which underlies this policy is not far 
to seek. It is the name of benevolence which beguiles 
our judgment. We have a natural but rather vague 
impression that charity, almsgiving and provision for the 
ignorant or the helpless are very sacred things, and it is 
exceedingly difificult for us to look with fresh eyes on the 
question whether after all there is any real sacrifice or 
self-denial in trying to control the expenditure of our 
money when it is no longer in our power to enjoy it. 
Says the Duke to Claudio, 

" If thou art rich, thou art poor; 
For, like the ass whose back with ingots bows, 
Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, 
And Death unloads thee." 1 

But this is precisely the arrangement to which many 

1 Measure for Measure, ill. i. 25. 



Equitable rigJits of founders 199 

a charitable founder declines to submit. He refuses to 
be unladen by death of his wealth or of the influence 
which wealth gives. He will not leave his successors at 
liberty to use their own discretion as to the disposal of 
what will fall to their share, but claims to control it 
permanently, and thus to purchase a quasi-immortality 
for himself. He is more concerned to erect a big, im- 
pressive institution which may loom large in the eyes of 
posterity and bear his name than to enquire what is the 
wisest and most effective way of providing educational 
or other help for those he most desires to benefit. In a 
sense not contemplated by the Apostle, charity is thus 
often made to '* cover a multitude of sins." 

It is often argued that a man has a right to do what 7//^ 

he will with his own, whether what is his own has become ^'/"'^^^'''^^ 

... J rights of 
so by inheritance or by acquisition. Grant, it is ^2i\Qiy founders. 

that it is for the public interest to leave the privilege of 

bequest unfettered in relation to children or private 

friends, and you are equally bound to concede that right 

in respect to any public objects which the testator may 

prefer. There is, however, an important distinction here. 

If a man leaves money to me, or even if he leaves me 

only a life interest in an estate, I am at least at liberty 

to spend the income as I will. If, in bequeathing an 

income to me, he also prescribed minutely the way in 

which I should spend it — if, for example, he desired that 

I should employ the whole revenue in the purchase of 

coats of a particular cut and pattern, with his initials 

embroidered on the collar, I should probably decline to 

accept the legacy. But when the community or some 

section of it is the legatee, it is always assumed that it is 

bound to accept the gift, and to observe as a sacred trust 

all the conditions, however fanciful, which the giver has 

chosen to impose. Endowments come to the public on 



200 Endowmejits and tJieir injiueiice on Education 

a condition which never applies to private benefactions 
at all; viz., on the condition that the beneficiaries shall 
spend the annual income in the way prescribed by the 
giver. In both of these cases he exercises the very reason- 
able right of nominating his successor. But in one case 
he does more than this, for he not only names the public 
as his heir, but he undertakes to determine for all future 
time, the mode in which the revenue of his estate shall 
be expended. There is, in fact, no analogy between a 
private gift or bequest on the one hand, and a permanent 
endowment for a public purpose on the other. Nor 
would the equitable conditions of the two kinds of 
benevolence admit of fair comparison, unless the State, 
as representing the community, which is after all the 
legatee supposed to receive the advantage of the benefac- 
tion, asserted for herself the twofold right which belongs 
to every private legatee : (i) To judge for herself whether 
the conditions attached to the gift are such as to make it 
worth acceptance; and (2) to spend the income of the 
endowment in the way which she deems best for her 
own interest and for meeting her own needs. 

This second condition, of course, cannot in practice 
be fulfilled without undermining the foundation of en- 
dowments altogether. If it were, and not until it were 
fulfilled it would be possible to apply the same reasoning 
inforo conscientice to the validity and sacredness of private 
and of public bequests. But as a matter of fact and of 
human experience, all civilized States are found in dif- 
ferent degrees willing to accept gifts from dying men, and 
to give to the provisions of their deeds of gift the force 
of law. It is needless to discuss the question of natural 
right in this case. Probably if we could look on the 
question with eyes purged rom all prejudice and consult 
Nature herself, she would reply that no man has a right 



TJie interest of tJie State in endowments 20 1 

to do more than administer such resources as he pos- 
sesses; and that when he ceases to live he ceases to be 
a fitting director of the expenditure derived from pro- 
perty, and ought to leave the control of that expenditure 
to his heirs, or, failing heirs, to the community as repre- 
sented for the time being by its responsible government. 
We may, however, leave to speculative philosophers the 
discussion of the question. How far is the power of 
distribution by bequest based on natural right? For 
practical purposes we know that this power is the creation 
of law and of expediency, and that all civilized States 
recognize it and protect its exercise. It is, therefore, 
open to us to consider, on grounds of expediency and 
experience only, what are the reasons which justify 
States in thus protecting the privilege of bequest, and 
within what limits, if any, that privilege should be 
restricted. 

It is obvious, in the first place, that the State is The State 
interested in encouraging the acquisition of property. ^" ^'^^■^^^'^^'_ 
Almost every man who succeeds in amassing a fortune tainiu^ 
by honourable means must, in the act of amassing it, ^]^l^j . 
have put forth power and exercised virtues which have 
helped to enrich the State. The whole community is 
concerned to diminish the temptation to idleness on the 
part of its members, and to put all reasonable bounties 
and premiums upon those efforts by which wealth is 
accumulated. And among such bounties and premiums, 
the legal right to make a man's wishes operative after his 
death, and so to secure, what we all value, a little share 
of posthumous influence, a small fragment of immortality, 
is one of the most effective. Apart, therefore, from all 
considerations respecting the ultimate value of a gift to 
a beneficiary, it is certain that the power to dispose of 
property is itself a great incentive to accumulation, and 



202 Endozvments and their i)ifluence on Education 

is one which, in her own interest, the State does well 
to provide. 

We have all, as citizens, a further motive for giving a 
reasonable encouragement to public benefactions. It is 
good that a man should care about some larger interests 
than those which concern his own person and family. 
These last have, no doubt, the first claim upon him; but 
unless his sympathies extend further, he is a poor creature, 
and unworthy to be the inheritor of great benefits and 
great traditions. Our debt to parents cannot, of course, 
be fully paid to parents; the largest part of it must be 
paid to those towards whom in time we shall occupy the 
place of ancestors. This is Nature's provision for the 
transmission of nearly all that is good in the world. 
Gratitude to one's predecessors must in practice be 
shown by acts which will excite the gratitude of our 
successors. And the legal sanction given to endowments 
is one mode of keeping alive this feeling of moral obli- 
gation to posterity, this recognition of the fact that each 
human being is a link by which what is best in the past 
should be united with what shall be still better in the 
future. Without such recognition mankind would slowly 
degenerate. If there be a man who thinks that, as soon 
as he has done with the .world, it matters not what 
becomes of it, the sooner the world has done with him 
the better. The "enthusiasm of humanity," which is 
the product of the Christian faith, and the sense of duty 
to posterity which Comte inculcated and which forms 
one of the cardinal items in the Positivistcode, arealike 
in this, that they seek to awaken in man some solicitude 
about the future of his race, and some desire to have an 
honourable share in the moulding of that future. All 
our polity, legal and social, all our history and all our 
experience ought gradually to deepen and enlarge this 



Eiidoivniciits encourage neiv experiuients 203 

sense of obligation towards posterity. If it be not deep- 
ened and enlarged, then Christianity and civilization 
alike fail to fulfil their purpose. 

Apart from the moral influence on national character Eudow- 
and on the spirit of citizenship, which may be maintained ^'^^'^^•'' '"'^y 

^ ^ ' ■' _ _ encourage 

by preserving the right of endowment, there is a practical variety, 
advantage which we cannot overlook. The tendency of '^ '"^""^ 
all improvement is towards differentiation, not to urn- tnenfs. 
formity.^ Every nation is interested in encouraging new 
varieties of enterprise and new forms of experiment in 
regard to the solution of its public problems. An auto- 
cratic government seeks to mould all institutions after 
one of^cial pattern; undertakes to deal with such matters 
as railways, poverty, education and religion in accord- 
ance with a fixed plan, and thus pj'o tan to discourages 
all private initiative. But the government which best 
suits free men welcomes the co-operation of all citizens 
in efforts for social amelioration. It has no horror of 
fads and crotchets and new types of institutions. It 
knows well that the originality and inventiveness of pri- 
vate citizens make up a large part of the public wealth; 
and that out of experiments, which at first appeared to 
be useless, and even ridiculous, some of the most valu- 
able results have grown. J. S. Mill has said : " Since trial 
alone can decide whether any particular exi)eriment is 
successful, latitude should be given for carrying on the 
experiment until the trial is complete. For the length 
of time, therefore, which individual foresight can reason- 
ably be supposed to cover, and during which circum- 
stances are not likely to have so totally changed as to 
make the effect of the gift entirely different from what 
the giver intended, there is an obvious propriety in 

1 See aute, p. 106. 



204 E7idowments ajid their iiifliience on Education 

abiding by his disposition. . . . Within the probable limits 
of human foresight, the more scope that is given to the 
varieties of human individuality, the better."^ 
But so7ne- The energetic plea of Mr Mill for endowments as a 
^to"^revent ^^^^^'^ of perpetuating new, original, possibly eccentric 
improve- and unpopular, but ultimately valuable forms of public 
juenL benevolence and educational activity would be more 
weighty if his argument had not been tested in England 
by centuries of experience. It was my duty to examine 
and report upon upwards of one hundred endowed 
grammar schools before the great reform of 1869, and 
their most notable feature was their curious sameness. 
Whatever was striking and novel in the original concep- 
tion of the founder had long ago disappeared; but the 
restrictions remained in full force. The founder's direc- 
tions that the instruction should be confined to Latin 
and Greek had the effect of furnishing a reason why 
nothing else should be taught; but in very rare cases did 
they have the effect of teaching even those languages 
well. The dead hand everywhere repressed originality, 
discouraged all effort on the part of teachers to get out 
of the groove; but in no case was it an instrument of 
improvement. Variety, enterprise, freshness, enthusiasm, 
even eccentricity, are all of them, in their way, potent 
factors in the improvement of education. We cannot 
afford to dispense with them. The more we can have of 
them the better. But sad experience leads us to con- 
clude that none of these have been produced by endow- 
ments. There is nothing more monotonous than the 
routine practised by mere pedants, who are repressed 
and hampered by statutes and ordinances to which 
they must pay a nominal respect, but which it is now 

^ John Stuart INI ill, Dissertations, Vol. I v. p. 6. 



Conditions of vitality 205 



impossible to obey either in the spirit or the letter. For 
however enlightened the view of the founders may have 
been relating to the needs of their own contemporaries, 
the very fact that those views are embodied in statutes 
and ordinances renders them difficult if not incapable 
of modification when new and unexpected circumstances 
arise. Hence come stagnation, rigidity and a sort of 
dull decorum, a disposition to rest rather upon the 
traditions of the past than upon any obligations to the 
present or the future; a vague notion that in some way 
an ancient foundation is a more respectable institution 
than one which has to assert its own right to recognition 
by making itself useful to the present generation. And 
all these influences combine to produce, not the variety 
of type which is held in such just esteem by Mill and 
other abstract thinkers, but a dead level of monotony. 

With the teaching of history for our guidance, what Condition 
are the conditions under which charitable foundations ^-^'^''^^'^'^-^ 
can best be made to fulfil their highest purposes and to dowed in- 
become blessings rather than curses to posterity? \Ve •^^'^"'^^^''^•^* 
cannot repress the instinct which leads founders to endow 
institutions. A wise statesman would not do so if he 
could. Nor can we safely put any hindrances in the way 
of new experiments either in philanthropy or education. 
But we can deduce from past experience a few practical 
inferences; and so may be helped to guard against the 
recurrence at least of some of the more serious evils 
which seem to be inherent in all fondations a perpetiiite 
unless due precautions are taken. 

The first condition to be filled is that the object or That the 
purpose of the gifts should be such that it is for the public ^?^^^{ , , 

should be 

advantage that they should be received. The communi ty a worthy 
as a whole should in fact exercise the same risht that '''^'^- 
belongs to any private legatee, — the right to decline 



206 Endowments and tJieir injlnence on Education 

any gift which is clogged by unsuitable and unworkable 
conditions, or which is designed for a useless object. 
Private persons, as I have said, can, if a bequest be made 
to them, choose either to accept or to reject the gift. The 
State is the only legatee which is ready to accept in the 
name of the community any gift, and to enforce the pro- 
visions of any trust, whether such acceptance is or is not 
desirable m se. We need, therefore, clear conceptions as 
to the kind of gifts which the public are interested in 
receiving and those which it would be wiser for the public 
to reject. All gifts which purport to redress the evils of 
poverty or improvidence need to be received with much 
caution and misgiving. The provision of funds for the 
propagation of the testator's opinions by means of preach- 
ing, lectures, publications or other forms of intelligent 
persuasion are legitimate enough, but all forms of charity 
which even indirectly operate as rewards or bribes for 
holding or professing such opinions are clearly mis- 
chievous. Charities, limited as regards their future and 
permanent destination to founder's kin, or to the in- 
habitants of a particular district, are apt to lead to litiga- 
tion and other practical evils. But gifts for the blind, 
for the sick, for the deaf, for the aged; endowments for 
public instruction in the form of schools, libraries, pro- 
fessorships and the encouragement of research; provision 
for public recreation in the form of parks, playgrounds, 
picture galleries and museums — all precautions, in short, 
against evils and disadvantages which those who suffer 
from them did not bring upon themselves, and which, 
therefore, are not likely to be aggravated by the existence 
of an endowment, are legitimate, and will, under right 
conditions, always be acceptable gifts to a well-ordered 

That the c°m>"™i'y- 

mode of But the true value even of such legitimate provision 



The Johns Hopkins University 207 

depends entirely on the mode in which it is made. The attainiiv^ 

first condition of a useful endowment is that the end it^ ^>-oui 

not be too 

purposes to attain is a worthy one, and conducive to the rigidly 

public advantage. But the second is no less important. ^'^"^^'^ ^' ' 

It is that the means and machinery by which the end is 

to be attained shall not be too rigidly prescribed. Unless 

this second condition be fulfilled it is to little purpose 

that we secure the first. And in practice, the second is 

more rarely attained than the first. It is far easier to 

have a clear vision as to the worthiness of an object than 

to forecast the best of the many different ways by which 

that object may be accomplished. Now and then we 

are fortunate enough to receive gifts from testators who 

have had the wisdom to recognize this fact and to leave 

large liberty to their successors to adapt their regulations 

to future needs. Let me choose two examples of this 

enlightened liberality, one from each side of the Atlantic. 

From an admirable address by President QAXxsxd^w The Johns 
before the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore I take iJll/J"-i 
this extract : sity. 

"Johns Hopkins devoted his fortune to a University 
and to a Hospital, intending that as far as medical educa- 
tion was concerned, the two institutions should be the 
closest allies, but he did not prescribe the conditions 
under which these two ideas should be developed. He 
knew that the promotion of knowledge by charity would 
call for very large outlays in all future generations, but in 
planning for the remote as well as for the present, he was 
sagacious enough to perceive that methods must change 
with changing circumstances, and he left to the trustees 
all the freedom which was requisite for the administration 
of their work, consistently with adherence to the noble 
purposes which he had in mind. He provided with 
equal liberality for the promotion ( f an educational 



2o8 Etidowments and their influence on Education 

foundation of the highest name, and for a medical 
foundation, where the utmost skill should be employed 
in the alleviation of bodily infirmities. But the mode 
in which these establishments should be organized he 
left to the wisdom of others." 
Sir Josiah The second example I shall cite is that of Josiah 

1 asons ]\/[jjgQj^ tl^e eminent and successful manufacturer in 

jounaa- ' 

tions. Birmingham, who devoted a large part of his fortune 
to public objects. Perhaps I may, without egotism, best 
tell his story by an extract from my own evidence given 
in 1886 before a Committee of the House of Commons, 
charged with the duty of enquiring into the working of the 
Charitable Trusts Acts and the Endowed Schools Acts. 
The questioner was Mr C. S. Parker, a distinguished 
member of the Parliamentary Committee : — 

Evidence 1435- Speaking generally, should you say that since 1869 very 

before great public benefit has been conferred by the revision of educa- 

Lomnnttee .^^^^^ endowments by public authorities ? — Enormous public bene- 
of the -^ ^ ^ 

House of fit, I should think. 

Cof?imons 1 436- Vou are aware, of course, that there have been some 

on educa- strong objections made to that kind of interference; for instance, 

, '^'f* in such interference there has been necessarily much free hand- 

dowments. 

ling of the endowments, has there not ? much change of the pur- 
poses to which they were directed ? — Yes, no doubt, and alteration 
of the trusts under which the governors were bound to carry on the 
work of a school. 

1437. ^'^^'^ within certain limits departures horn founders' in- 
tentions ? — Necessarily. 

1438. There is one general objection made, that such depar- 
ture from founders' intentions has a direct tendency to discourage 
similar foundations for the future; should you say, from your expe- 
rience, that there is such a result from this public revision of endow- 
ments ? — I should say that the modern interference with the trusts 
established by founders has probably had the effect of discouraging 
some of the more selfish and ostentatious forms of endowment, those 
which the public is least interested in receiving. But I have no 
doubt that it has given a very remarkable impulse to all the truer and 



Sii^ JosiaJi Mason 209 

wiser forms of endowment; and perhaps the best proof of that is to 
be found in the fact that there never have been in the history of Eng- 
land, as far as I know, such large bequests and gifts to public pur- 
poses as within the last few years, and since the Charitable Trusts 
Acts and the Endowed Schools Acts have been in full operation. 

1439. If I understand you rightly, your view is, that with the 
best class of founders, so far from discouraging, this public super- 
vision positively encourages them to spend their money in endow- 
ments ? — Certainly, I think the best proof of that is, as I have just 
said, the very large number of munificent gifts and bequests that 
have been made within the last few years. 

1440. Could you give any striking instances to illustrate that 
statement ? — I may refer to the Peabody Trust ; that was not, it is 
true, for education, but for a very large public purpose ; then tliere 
were Sir Joseph Whitworth's scholarships ; then there is the muni- 
ficent foundation of Mr HoUoway, at Egham ; and there are the very 
remarkable institutions founded by Sir Josiah Mason, at Birmingham ; 
to say nothing of the large number of splendid gifts that have been 
made to the Universities since University legislation has been in 
progress. If the chairman will permit me I should like to mention 
one circumstance which seems to me very significant in relation to 
the question of the honourable member. In 1869, when I was 
engaged on a special Parliamentary inquiry into the condition of 
education in Birmingham, the late Sir Josiah Mason said he should 
like to show me over his orphanage, which he had then very 
recently founded, and he described to me on that occasion the very 
bountiful provision he had made for the future maintenance of this 
institution. He also told me what schemes he then had in his mind 
for the endowment of the great Science College which has since 
been established. I said to him then : " Are you not afraid of leaving 
such large bequests to posterity when you see the modern tendency 
to overhaul and revise the wills of founders ? " He replied : "That 
is the very reason why I feel such confidence in leaving these sums 
of money. If it were not that public authorities are likely to Ije 
vigilant and to correct any mistake that I make, and to take care 
to keep these institutions in full working efficiency, I should feel 
very much hesitation in leaving such large sums to my successors." 
It was in this spirit that in the following year, 1870, he introduced 
into his deed of foundation for the Science College this provision : 
" Provided always, that it shall be lawful for the said Josiah Mason at 

P 



210 Eiidozvments and tJieir infitiejice on Education 

any time during his life, and after his decease for the trustees, within 
two years after the expiration of every successive period of fifteen 
years, to alter or vary the trusts or provisions herein contained in 
all or any of the following particulars." Then he enumerates every 
one of the particulars, except the general object of the foundation, 
namely, the improvement of scientific instruction. The obvious 
intention of this was to take care to provide for the periodical 
revision and modification of every one of the ordinances and arrange- 
ments which he had laid down, stipulating only that the main 
object of the foundation should be kept in view. I do not want to 
attach too much importance to a single incident, but I think it 
significant that this clause occurs in the deed which he executed in 
the year 1870 for the Science College, and does not occur in the deed 
which he executed for his orphanage in the year 1868. It was 
exactly within that interval that all those public discussions and 
revelations went on in reference to the abuses of ancient endow- 
ments and the propriety of revising the founders' wills. 

1441. So you think it reasonable to infer that he was partly 
guided in his latter will by the wish to see public revision from 
experience of its benefits ? — That is certainly the impression I gained 
from the history of his endowments and from what he said to me. 

1442. Do you think that that would be the case with many en- 
lightened and intelligent founders, that they would be more disposed, 
instead of being less disposed to give their money, if they thought 
there would be future public revision? — With all the wisest and 
most truly benevolent founders, I think it would. 

But dispositions of this kind are only made when to 

benevolent instincts are united wisdom, forethought, and 

modesty. And this is a rare combination. You cannot 

expect it in all testators, or in very many of them. And 

society must, when these are wanting, take its own 

measures to supply a substitute for them. 

Super- Hence, whether the testator provides for the revision 

^"'// ?' of his ordinances or not, it is absolutely necessary that 

amend- his institutions should not be permitted to survive their 

ment, the usefulness and to cumber the ground. To this end the 

duty of the ^ 

State. State should have the power to do what in his un- 



Constitution of govcrniiig bodies 211 

avoidable absence it may be presumed that the testator, 
if he were as benevolent and wise as we like to think 
him, would himself have done had he lived, i.e., revise 
his ordinances and adapt them to the changed condition 
of society. It is a poor compliment to a departed bene- 
factor to assume that, if now living, he would be less 
amenable to the teaching of experience or less anxious 
to meet the actual wants of the present than he was in 
his own time, or than we are in ours. His means and 
methods, therefore, should both be subject to periodical 
reconsideration, and, if necessary, to resolute and drastic 
reform. And so long as the general object and purposes 
of a foundation — presuming that it is in itself a worthy 
one — is kept in view, the adaptation of new and improved 
methods of attaining that object, is the most honourable 
tribute posterity can pay to a founder's memory; because 
it is the only condition on which the vitality and useful- 
ness of his charity can be preserved. 

But the most important of all the securities for the Cointitu- 
efificiency of foundations is the provision for a good and^'^'^ ^J . 

■^ _ ^ ° _ govermng 

responsible governing body. It is to the wrong constitu- bodies. 
tion of the governing bodies that more than half of the 
evils of endowments have been due. A testator confides 
the administration of his fund to a small group of trustees, 
with power to fill up vacancies as they occur. By this 
process of co-optation or self-election, the body becomes 
year by year more narrow, whatever of party exclusive- 
ness belongs to the original trustees becomes stereotyped 
and rendered permanent, and the trust becomes more and 
more completely out of sympathy with the public and 
less conscious of responsibility. In fact, it is not un- 
common to hear the members of such governing bodies 
speak of the fund they administer as tJieir property, and 
of the right which they have to administer it in their own 



212 Eiidozvments and their injiueitct on Education 

way and without interference. In no European country 
known to me, except England, is such an arrangement 
legally possible. In France, e.g.^ a bequest for a public 
purpose, whether local or national, must be confided to 
the care of a municipality, a university, or some public 
body known to the law and responsible to it. It is not 
lawful to create a perpetual private trust. 

In England, governing bodies composed of various 
ingredients have been found to work best and to be most 
congenial to the spirit of our national institutions. Expe- 
rience has shown that the staple of a good governing 
council should be provided by members appointed 
from time to time by election or by responsible public 
authorities who represent the interests of the several 
classes for whom the benevolence was designed. The 
body thus formed should have the power of adding to 
its own number a limited contingent of outside members, 
known to possess special knowledge or special interest 
in the objects of the charity. Co-optation, as we have 
shown, is mischievous when it applies to the whole of 
a body, or even to the majority of it, for then it may 
cause trustees to degenerate into a narrow clique. But 
co-optation when it affects only a minority among trustees 
most of whom are themselves the product of popular or 
official selection is only an indirect form of representative 
government, and often has the effect of strengthening a 
trust by enlisting in its management the services of 
valuable members, who might not for various reasons 
have been candidates for popular election. 

Finally, one of the main safeguards which modern 
legislation has in England sought to provide, though as 
yet it has only provided it imperfectly, is that of publicity. 
It has been found indispensable that every endowed in- 
stitution should annually publish its accounts, and that 



Practical Conclusions 213 

there should be a periodical and public record made of 
its efficiency and of the kind and amount of public work 
which it is actually accomplishing. Whatever difference 
of opinion may exist on the abstract right of the 
Government as the representative of the community to 
control an endowment and to override the intentions 
of founders, there can at least be no room for doubt 
on one point: the community for whose benefit the 
endowment has been designed has in its capacity of 
legatee the strongest interest in learning what use is 
made of its inheritance, and an unquestionable right to 
know it. 

Such, then, are the antiseptics by means of which, in Summary 
England, it has been found that endowments, especially ^-^^'''^^''^' 
those of an educational character, can be kept sweet and elusions. 
wholesome and without which abuses and corruption are 
inevitable. They are : undoubted public usefulness in 
the object; elasticity in the means; periodical revision, 
and, if needful, reconstruction of the scheme of adminis- 
tration; responsibility of governors and trustees to the 
community for whose benefit the gift was intended; 
ample publicity and constant vigilance. In fine we need 
a full recognition of two principles: (i) that the endow- 
ment exists only for the benefit of the community and 
has no other right to exist at all, and (2) that the State, 
as the supreme trustee of all endowments, has the right 
though in a cautious and reverential spirit to make, from 
time to time, such changes in the destination and manage- 
ment of charity estates as the experience of new social 
needs and circumstances may show to be necessary, 
and in this way to secure for that community the full 
benefit of what has been bestowed on it. 

I am speakinsr in a land which' cannot vet have ^"S-^'^'^ 
experienced the mischief attendant on ancient charitable America. 



214 Endowments and their injlitejice on Education 

foundations, but which possesses in a high degree all the 
materials out of which such foundations are constructed 
— opulence, public spirit and an honourable desire to be 
remembered by posterity and to do service to it. In 
England the man who amasses great wealth often sets his 
heart on founding a family, on getting a large landed 
estate and on taking a permanent place for his posterity 
among the territorial aristocracy. But in this country 
the possessor of a colossal fortune often conceives the 
much nobler ambition of founding some great institution 
for the public benefit, and so of perpetuating his name. 
I do not presume, in a country whose traditions and 
experience are so different from those of England, to 
offer any counsel to the recipients of such gifts. But 
I have thought it possible that this brief record of a few 
of our English experiences might serve some useful 
purpose even here. At any rate, some of the main con- 
clusions which I have ventured to enforce are applicable 
to both the Eastern and the Western hemispheres, to the 
twentieth century as well as to the sixteenth. They are 
briefly these : First, That the intellectual and social 
wants of each age differ, and always must differ, from 
those of its predecessors, and that no human foresight 
can possibly estimate the nature and extent of the 
difference. Next, That the value of a gift for public 
purposes depends not on the bigness of the sum given, 
but upon the wisdom of the regulations and upon the 
elasticity of the conditions which are attached to the gift ; 
and Finally, That every institution which is to maintain 
its vitality, and to render the highest service to successive 
generations of living men should be governed by the 
living and not by the dead. 



LECTURE VII 

ASCHAM AND THE SCHOOLS OF THE 
RENAISSANCE 

The Modern English school the product of growth, not of manu- 
facture. The influence of religion. Greek served to shape tlie 
Creeds and theology. But Latin more studied and valued by 
the Church. The revival of Greek learning nut due to the 
Church. Pre-Keformatiun Grammar Schools. Roger Ascliam. 
The Scholemaster. Aschain's royal pupils. His experience 
in Italy. St Paul's School. Examples of Sixteenth Century 
Statutes. Chester, Manchester, Louth. Choice of masters. 
The scheme of Study. Details of the Grammar School cur- 
riculum. Disputations. Hours of .Study and of Teaching. 
Vacations. Punishments. Payment of fees. No provision 
for Girls' education. The Grammar School theory. How 
should it be modilied by later experience ? How much of it 
should survive ? 

In further illustration of the debt we owe to the 
founders of ancient educational endowments, it may be 
well to enquire a little into the state of England at the 
time of the revival of learning and immediately before it. 
We may do this in p:irt by considering in a little detail, 
the life and doings of one typical English scholar, Roger 
Ascham. 

Before attempting this task we must observe that the ^'/'^ 
educational institutions of England, like its political J/^^',,^^^'^ 
institutions, and its vocabulary, have been the product of school a 

215 



2i6 AscJuxni and the Schools of the Retiaissancc 

product of long historical development, have grown out of the neces- 

}^io7t<ti no jjjgg ^j^^ experience of our forefathers, and have shaped 
pj /name- ^ ' ^ 

facturc. themselves from time to time in conformity with that 
experience. They have become what they are by a 
process of growth and evolution, not of manufacture. 
We cannot point to the period when they originated, or 
to any. thinker or statesman who may be said to have 
created them. VVe have no Code Napoleon, nothing in 
our history analogous to the foresight of John Knox, who 
founded the parish school system of Scotland and made 
possible that connexion between the primary schools nnd 
the Universities which still exists. We cannot name a 
Statesman like Stein or Falk in (lermany who has orga- 
nized the whole system of public instruction, nor liad we 
at any time such provision as that made by the Puritan 
fathers of the New England States, or by the framers of the 
American Constitution for setting apart for ever land and 
resources for the maintenance of the common schools. 
Our system, if so it maybe called, is the resultant not of 
any statesman's or philosopher's insight into the future, 
but mainly of tradition and accident. It has not the 
symmetry and completeness of the Swiss or German or 
French system; and its history is a record of anomalies 
and compromises, of adaptations to the wants and theories 
of the hour rather than of large and comprehensive 
statesmanship. It were idle to regard this as a thing to 
boast of, on the one hand, or to be ashamed of, on the 
other. Iwery nation has its own idiosyncrasy, and must 
solve its problems in its own way, and in accordance 
with its own genius and traditions. And the luiglish 
genius it must be owned is not one which lends itself 
readily to constitution making, to the framing of a 
philosophical scheme either of government or of educa- 
tion. It i)roceeds cautiously and tentatively. In slowly 



TJie influence of religion 2 1 7 

building its constitutional system it seeks to add what is 

new to the best of what is old; and it is not ashamed or 

disappointed when the resulting edifice is found to be 

rather rambling and shapeless in design, so long as it is 

roomy and convenient. 

And so it has come to pass that the history of educa- 77ie injlu- 

tion in this country is closely associated with the history '^'^ff' ^/ 

■' religion. 
of religion, and still bears traces of the influences which 

prevailed when the chief object of all instruction was to 
fit men for the service of the Church. Before the Refor- 
mation, when such educational advantages as were acces- 
sible were the privilege of rich men or of priests there 
were mainly two forms of discipline, that of the cloister, 
and that of the castle or the manor house. The young 
squire or nobleman was sufficiently educated if he could 
ride and hunt, and was skilful in athletic exercises and 
in the arts of w^ir. Very little book knowledge was 
accessible to the country gentleman, or would have 
seemed desirable either to society or to himself. Scott 
makes the Earl of Douglas express a very prevalent dis- 
trust of book learning when he said of young Mar- 

mion. 

At first in heart it liked me ill, 

When the King praised his clerkly skill; 

and added, 

Thanks to St Bothan, son of mine, 
wSave Gawain, ne'er could pen a line. 

Gawain was designed for the priesthood. The very word 
"clerk" with its ambiguous modern meaning may re- 
mind us that the power to write was once considered 
the special prerogative of the clergy and of those edu- 
cated in monasteries. 

Indeed it is plain that the whole theory of classical Greek 
education is closely connected with the relations in'^^''^^"^^ 



2i8 AscJiani and tJic Schools of the Renaissance 

shape the which the Greek and Latin tongues have stood in early 
Iheolo'^'v^^^ times to the intellectual, scientific, and spiritual life of 
Christendom. The treasures of Jewish literature as 
found in the Old Testament, and the Greek Gospels 
as found in the New, furnished the equipment of the 
early Christian Church. Greek was, so to speak, the 
mother tongue of the Church. St Paul wrote in it; 
the Founder of Christianity spoke a dialect of it; the 
Churches which were first established in Europe were 
Greek religious colonies. The first Councils of the 
Church were conducted in that language, and, when 
creeds were first formulated, they, and the speculative 
discussions out of which they arose, took their shape 
from the Greek language and Greek forms of thought. 
The translation of the books of the Old Testament into 
Greek was one of the earliest tasks of the Christian 
fathers. The "Meditations" of Marcus Aurelius were 
written in Greek, and for several centuries jurisprudence 
was the only branch of learning which was cultivated in 
Latin. 

But as the influence of the Church extended farther 
into the ^V^estern world Latin became more and more 
studied. From the time when Pope Damasus com- 
missioned Jerome to examine and correct such Latin 
versions of the Gospels as then existed, and to revise 
the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, and thus 
to produce the authoritative version of the whole Bible 
which is known as the Latin Vulgate, the language of 
ancient Rome gradually became dominant, Latin 
schools were numerous among the Western nations, and 
Hallam thinks that a knowledge of Latin was more 
common by the end of the twelfth century than it had 
ever been before. And it is to be observed that this 
language was the basis of mediceval education, not merely 



Revival of Greek learning 219 

because of the beauty or worth of the ancient Roman 
literature, which was thus made intelligible to a later age, 
nor because of its value as an intellectual gymnastic, nor 
indeed because it was regarded as the best mode of 
obtaining a thorough command of a modern tongue, but 
because it was the common language of educated people 
throughout Western Europe — the language, to a large 
extent, of philosophy and science and even of commerce, 
but chiefly the language of religious worship and instruc- 
tion, enforced by authority as the one visible and most 
effective means of securing the unity of the Church. 

During a long period the study of the ancient Greek But Latin 
authors — of Plato and Aristotle — was greatly disregarded. J%f//^^J'^ 
The fears entertained by Gregory the Great of the pos- andvalued 
sible dangers of secular learning and of heathen specula- ;V^^ , 
tions were largely shared by his successors, and from the 
twelfth to the fourteenth centuries the Latin which was 
learned in the monasteries and schools was not classical, 
but a debased form of language, written and spoken for 
practical purposes — for conference, or for ecclesiastical 
controversy, by persons who were mainly indifferent to 
literary form. It was not till a later date that Dante's 
affectionate homage to Virgil, and Petrarch's efforts to 
resuscitate a taste for the great writers of the Augustan 
age, helped to make classical Latin again an object of 
general study, especially in the Universities of Northern 
Italy. 

And, with the revival of an interest in the master- The 
pieces of Roman literature, there soon came — under the '^^!'^JJ^ "-^ 
influence mainly of Italian scholars, and towards the end learning 
of the fourteenth century — a corresponding awakening 'J^'^^^'^^'^^J^ 
of desire to study the philosophy and the poetry of Greece. 
It took another century before this revived interest in 
letters reached our own land, and it is to Luther in 



220 Ascham and the Schools of the Renaissance 

Germany, and to Erasmus and his friends and associates 
in England, that we must attribute the zeal for classical 
scholarship which we generally associate with the Renais- 
sance in Western Europe. With these men however 
it was no indifference to religion, nor any relapse into 
heathenish modes of thought, which led them to the 
course they took. In their case it was a profound belief 
that the interests of true religion would be well served 
by sounder and more generous education. Luther says, 
in his famous letter to the burgomasters of Germany: — 

" When first God sent the apostles throughout the world, He 
gave tliem the tongues also. Aye and beforehand, l)y the Roman 
rule, lie had spread the Greek and Latin tongues in all lands, tliat 
His Gospel might bear fruit far and wide. So hath He done now. 
No one knew to what end God was bringing forth the tongues 
again, till now it is seen that it was for the Gospel's sake. . . . As 
wc hold the Gospel dear then, so let us hold the languages fast. If 
we do not keep the tongues, we shall not keep the Gospel. As 
tlie sun to the shadow, so is the tongue itself to all the glosses of 
the Fathers. Ah, how glad the dear Fathers would have been if 
they could have so learned Holy Scripture." 

x-^nd Erasmus too, whose profound spiritual enthusi- 
asm furnishes the key both to his educational reforms and 
to his pitiless satires, makes his well-known Colloquies 
the vehicle for denunciations against the corruption of 
the Church, and shows in other ways that he regarded 
the light which learning could throw upon religious and 
Scriptural studies, as of far more importance than the 
elegancies of scholarship, or of mere literary style. 

Indeed there was a fundamental difference between 
the educational theory of Erasmus and that of Ascham 
and his fast friend Sturm of Strasburg. The former 
sought to treat Latin as a living language, and to make 
his scholars speak and think in it. But Sturm and 
Ascham regarded it of chief importance to aim at 



Latin the tang it age of tJic CJiurcJi 221 

elegance in the choice and use of Latin as a vehicle 
of literary expression. And while Melancthon, Luther, 
and Sturm in Germany, and Erasmus, Ascham, Cheke, 
Colet, and Smith, in England, were in very different 
ways urging the claims of Greek and Latin scholarship 
either as instruments of general cultivation and as aids 
to religious reform, the Jesuits resolved to fight heresy 
with the same weapons, and the schools which they 
established on the Continent differed mainly from others 
in their insistence on Latin as the great factor in educa- 
tion, to the practical exclusion of Greek. As Mr Charles 
Parker says in the Essays on a Liberal Education : — 

"They (the Jesuits) knew but one end, the interests of the 
Cliurch; one sacred text, the Vulgate; one Breviary, the Roman; 
one will, their General's. So in their schools, they would have hut 
one spoken language, Latin; one style, that of Cicero; one theology, 
that of Aquinas; one philosophy, that of Aristotle, read in Latin 
translations and interpreted when possible by Aquinas. All this 
was matter of obedience. Read, write, speak Latin, was one rule. 
Imitate Cicero, was another. An independent style might foster 
independent thought, which might possibly ripen into independent 
action. Every class spoke Latin, every class read Cicero for jirose, 
and Virgil for verse. Three classes learned grammar, the fourth 
humanity, and the fifth rhetoric. The study of Latin was mainly 
directed to the formation of an eloquent style to lje used in the 
service of the Church." 

It must be added that the rules laid down by the 
Jesuit fathers in the jRatio Studionnn contain many wise 
and valuable suggestions about methods of teaching, and 
may still be studied with advantage by those who desire 
to make Latin an effective instrument of literary culture. 
But schools of this type, founded by the zeal of the 
first members of the Society of Jesus, after the establish- 
ment of that society by Loyola in 1540, were, though 
common in Germany and France, unable to find a foot- 
ing in England. The Reformation and the revival of 



222 Aschatn and the Schools of the Renaissance 

Greek learning combined to give a definite and peculiar 
local character to the educational foundations of the 
sixteenth century in England. Winchester and Eton had 
been founded by William of Wykeham and by Henry VI. 
respectively. Both were ecclesiastical foundations, with 
provision for choristers and chaplains, a warden and 
fellows — and were rather designed to be communities 
of adult and youthful scholars than schools in the modern 
sense. A connexion was established between Eton and 
King's College, Cambridge, and between Winchester and 
New College, Oxford. Of the other foundations anterior 
to the sixteenth century, the greater part were attached 
to cathedral or other religious foundations. 
Prc-Refor- Mr A. T. Leach in his interesting and laborious 
mation researches into the history of g^rammar schools has 

Grammar ■' ^ 

Schools. shown that before the Reformation there were many 
such schools connected with cathedrals, chantries, 
monasteries, hospitals, and guilds of various kinds, ^ 
besides a few founded by private benevolence. Under 
the Protector Somerset many of these, especially those 
which came within the provisions of the Chantries Act, 
were dissolved, rather on religious grounds, because in 
the view of the Parliament of Edward VI. superstitions 
and errors were taught in them, than with any desire to 
discourage or impoverish general education. It was at 
least the ostensible design of the Edwardian legislation 
to promote learning rather than to encourage a few men 
to spend their time in saying masses and singing psalms. 
A Royal Commission was formed in this reign to secure 
the continuance of ancient grammar schools on another 
footing, but it is clear from Mr Leach's investigations 
that this measure was not always effective, and that in 
the process of reconstruction and in the attempt to free 

1 Leach's English Schools at the Keforniation. 



Roger AscJiam 223 



the grammar school from ecclesiastical influence, much 
valuable property was lost or alienated from education, 
and some abuses crept in. Latimer loudly complained 
that the Act for the Continuing or Re-forming of the 
Grammar Schools had not been properly carried into 
effect. "But now many grammar schools be taken, sold 
and made away to the great slander of you and your 
laws, to the grievous offence of the people, to the most 
miserable drowning of youth in ignorance, and to the 
decay of the Universities." 

Perhaps the best and most characteristic example oi Roger 
the new influences which helped to shape the educational 
ideals of the sixteenth century is Roger Ascham, a scholar, 
a man of affairs, an adherent of the reformed faith, as 
well as a tutor and lecturer. He was born in Yorkshire 
in the year 1515. He came of an ancient and substantial 
family, entered the University of Cambridge at what was 
then the not unusual age of fifteen, and, after a very 
honourable academic career, was admitted to a fellowship 
at St John's College. He became a college lecturer, 
read Greek publicly in the University, and was chosen 
Public Orator. He also filled the office of instructor in 
the learned languages to the Princess Elizabeth, after- 
wards queen, in whose favour he remained until his 
death in 15 68, During three years, from 1550 to 1553, 
he served as secretary to Sir Richard Morysine at the 
court of the Emperor Charles V., and in this capacity 
acquired the experience which was afterwards recounted 
in his Report and Diseoiirse of the Affairs and State of 
Germany. In his absence he was appointed Latin 
Secretary to Edward VL — an office which he continued 
to hold during the two subsequent reigns. It is much 
to the credit of Mary and of Bishop (Gardiner and 
Cardinal Pole that Ascham, though he adhered to the 



224 Asc/iam and the Schools of the Renaissance 

Reformed faith, retained his Latin secretaryship through 
her reign. 

Thus his life presented unusual and very varied 
opportunities of acquiring knowledge respecting the 
social and intellectual movements of his time. That 
time was, both in the political and the religious spheres, 
one of unusual activity and unrest. The capture of 
Constantinople by the Turks had caused the dispersion 
of many scholars, some of whom fled to Italy, and be- 
came famous teachers, especially of the Greek language 
and literature. In this way a desire for learning had 
spread into Europe, and some of the more eminent 
English scholars — Sir John Cheke, Grocyn, Linacre, 
Sir Thomas Smith, Latimer, Warham, and Grindal, 
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, Dean Colet, the 
founder of St Paul's School, and Lyly its first head- 
master. Sir Thomas More, and Erasmus — became the 
pioneers of the revival of classical learning in England. 
With nearly all of these Ascham was intimate. They 
had, like himself, visited Italy, and studied Greek under 
professors there. But it is remarkable, and not wholly 
accidental, that the Renaissance was coincident with the 
Reformation, and that the group of scholars and thinkers 
with whom Ascham was associated were all greatly 
influenced by the teaching of Luther, and by his de- 
nunciations of the negligence and corruption into which 
the Roman Church of that day had fallen. The dis- 
solution of monasteries, and the introduction of Greek 
teaching in the English Universities, were parts of the 
same movement which made the sixteenth century so 
memorable for the emancipation of the intellect of 
Europe and for the beginnings of English literature. 
The love of learning, and freedom of thought in religion, 
were naturally akin. 



TJie ScJiolemasier 225 

The book which gives Ascham his chief title to a The 

place in the history of Education was written later, ^^'^/' 
^ •' master 

and was not published till after his death. It is called 
the "Scholemaster; Or, A Plain and Perfect Way of 
Teaching Children to Understand, Write, and Speak the 
Latin Tongue." The ends to which his suggestions were 
directed extended far beyond the limits of the mere ac- 
quirement of a language. " In writing this book, " he says, 
" I have had earnest respect to three special points : truth 
of religion, honesty in living, and right order in learning." 
The moral aim of all intellectual discipline is conspicuous 
throughout his pedagogic treatise The character he 
wants to form is that of one " grave, stedfast, silent of 
tongue, secret of heart, not hasty in making, but constant 
in keeping, any promise; not rash in uttering, but wary 
in considering every matter, and thereby not quick in 
speaking, but deep of judgment, whether they write or 

give counsel in all weighty affairs His wit should be 

quickwithout lightness, sharp withoutbrittleness, desirous 
of good things without new fangleness, diligent in painful 
things without wearisomeness, and constant in good-will 
to do all things well." In reference to school discipline, 
Ascham' s book is an earnest vindication of the need of 
gentleness and sympathy in dealing with children, and 
a strong protest against the cruelties often practised by 
pedagogues of the type of Nicholas Udal, the head- 
master of Eton, whose pitiless flogging was a scandal 
even in that age. A school, Ascham thought, should 
be, as its name implies, Ludus litterarum, — the house 
of play and pleasure, not of fear and bondage. " Love 
is better than fear, gentleness better than beating, to 
bring up a child rightly in learning." 

The admirable description and analysis of Ascham's 
method of teaching which is to be found in Mr Quick's 
Q 



226 Ascham and the Schools of the Renaissance 

Educational Reformers makes it unnecessary for me to 
enter into any detailed criticism of tlie pedagogical 
teaching of the "Scholemaster." Ascham's discussion of 
the several values of imitation, paraphrase, and translation, 
enters into much detail. Language was, in his view, the 
one staple element in all education, because it was helpful 
to many other objects than itself, and had relation to all 
reading, to all acquirement, and to all the experience of 
life. Other studies, he thought, might in their way be 
useful, but with some reserve. "Some wits, moderate 
enough by nature, be many times marred by overmuch 
studyanduseof some sciences; namely, music, arithmetic, 
and geometry. These sciences, as they sharpen men's 
wits overmuch, so they change men's manners over soon, 
if they be not moderately mingled and wisely applied to 
some good use of life. Mark all mathematical heads 
which be only and wholly bent to those sciences, how 
solitary they be themselves, how unfit to live with others, 
and how unapt to serve in the world ! " 
Ascham Apart from the main purpose of the book, some 

and his curious flashes of light are shed by it upon the social 

7-oval _ " ■' '' 

pupils. and religious life of the period. One of these comes from 
the charming picture of Ascham's interview with Lady 
Jane Grey, whom he found once at her father's house at 
Bradgate, in Leicestershire, reading the Plicedo of Plato 
in Greek, while all the rest of the courtly company were 
hunting in the park. On asking her why she denied 
herself a share in the pastime, the young lady spoke 
earnestly of the pleasure she derived from her Greek 
studies, and added, " My book hath been so much my 
pleasure, and bringeth me daily more pleasure and more, 
that in respect of it all other pleasures in very deed be 
but trifles and troubles unto me." And the panegyric 
on his own pupil. Queen Elizabeth, though not free from 



AscJiams experience in Italy 227 

the exaggeration of a courtier, is interesting as a proof 
that the ladies of the sixteenth century were not indifferent 
to the higher learning : " It is to your shame, you young 
gentlemen of England," said Ascham, "that one maid 
should go beyond you all in excellency of learning and 
knowledge of divers tongues. Point forth six of the best 
given gentlemen of this court, and all they together shew 
not so much good will, spend not so much time, bestow 
not so many hours daily, orderly, and constantly, for the 
increase of learning and knowledge as doth the Queen's 
Majesty herself." 

A pleasant light is thrown upon the manners of the 
time by the story of the old tutor's regular visits to the 
Queen, that they might read Latin and Greek books 
together, and diversify their exercises by games of chess 
and draughts. 

It was with less satisfaction that the serious and His expe- 
scholarly Ascham recounted other incidents which accom- j^^,\ 
panied the revival of learning. Italy had become the 
resort of scholars, and the chief channel through which 
Greek erudition found it way to Western Europe. But 
it had also become the favourite haunt of pleasure-loving 
young noblemen and gentlemen from England, and the 
state of society and of morals in that country filled him 
with anxiety. He once spent nine days in Venice, and 
in that little time he saw in that one city "more liberty 
to sin than ever I heard tell of in our noble city of 
London in nine years." "Time was when Italy and 
Rome have been to the great good of us that now live, 
the best breeders and bringers up of the worthiest men, 
not only for wise speaking, but also for well doing in all 
civil affairs that ever was in the world. But now that 
time is gone, and, though the place remain, yet the old 
and present manners do differ as far as black and white. 



rience in, 



228 Ascham and the Schools of the Renaissance 

as virtue and vice." He thought that the atheism, 
idleness, and extravagance of Italy at that period in our 
history were of evil example to rich young men coming 
from England, and were exercising an unwholesome 
influence on our social life at home; and he denounced 
some of the new fashions with vigour, and with a grave 
sadness which had no puritanical rigour in it. "These 
be the enchantments of Circe brought out of Italy to 
mar men's manners in England." 
His other Of his Other writings, the best known were a trans- 

%o} itings. jg^i-JQj-j from a commentary on some of the New Testament 
epistles, and his own Latin letters, of which Fuller, in 
his "Worthies," says that they were the "only Latin 
letters extant of any Englishman, — the more the pity." 
These letters furnish the history of the difficulties and 
anxieties of the scholar's life, his serious illnesses which 
twice sorely interrupted the course of his academic duties, 
and the encouragement he gave to his royal pupil to 
pursue with avidity her liberal studies. 

His place in the history of education is that of one 
who regarded with sympathy the older classical discipline, 
as well as the new revival of interest in Greek, but who 
looked with fresh eyes upon the traditional methods of 
teaching, and suggested some rational and practical im- 
provements. He was a "humanist " of the same type as 
Milton, who thought it the first business of teaching to 
make a man an accomplished and thoughtful gentleman, 
high-minded, courageous, and industrious in the pursuit 
of truth, and who considered that the study of language, 
logic, rhetoric, and the related sciences, were the best 
instruments for the attainment of this end. 

It was to the influence of such men as Ascham and 
his friends — scholars and statesmen, who were deeply 
penetrated with the reforming spirit in religion, and who 



Sf PaiiVs School 229 



cared for the promotion of learning for its own sake, and 
not as a means of promoting the interests of the Church, 
— that we owe the regenerate educational foundations of 
the sixteenth century. 

Of these, Dean Colet's great school of St V^.\\V?, st Pauis 
(15 10) was almost the first which distinctly aimed ^ii ^'^^'''^'^^■ 
a high secular education, and deliberately disavowed any 
special ecclesiastical purpose. Though the founder was 
Dean of St Paul's, he gave in his statutes no share of the 
government to his successors in the Chapter, but confided 
the whole future administration to a trading guild, to the 
Company of Mercers, who have since honourably fulfilled 
for nearly four centuries the duty he assigned to them. 
His scholars — who were for ever to number exactly 153, 
in commemoration of the number of fishes in the net of 
the Apostles — were to be drawn from all nations and 
countries, and to be instructed freely in the ancient 
tongues. Scholastic Latin was strictly excluded by the 
statutes, but Christian writers were admissible, if in good 
Latin. The High Master was to be "learned in good 
and clean Latin literature, and also in Greek, if such 7nay 
be gotten,'''' This conditional regulation significantly 
reminds us that at that date the Greek revival had made 
but little effective way. 

By the end of the century, founders such as Laurence Examples. 
Sherriff at Rugby, and John Lyon of Harrow, felt freer ^/-^'-^^^^'"^ 
to insist on Greek as a necessary element of their course, fouuda- 
Hesiod, however, being the only Greek poet named \^^^ons. 
the Harrow statutes. 

The founder of Chester Grammar School, 1558, en- Chester. 
joins: — 

" I will there were always taught good literature, both Latin and 
Greek, and good authors, such as have the Roman eloquence joined 
with wisdom, especially Christian authors, that wrote their wisdom 



230 AscJiant and the Schools of the Rejiaissmtce 

with clean and chaste Latin, either in prose or verse — for mine intent 
is by founding this school specially to increase knowledge and 
worshipping of God, and good Christian life and manners in the 
children," and then he enumerates the " Colloquies " and " Insti- 
tutes" of Erasmus, Ovid, Cicero, Terence, Horace, and Virgil, and 
"true Latin speech — all Barbaric, all corruption and filthiness, and 
such abuses as the blind world brought in, to be entirely banished 
and excluded, so that the master shall only teach what is best, and 
such authors as have with wisdom joined the pure eloquence." 

Manches- So the Indenture of Feoffment of the Manchester 
^'^^ • Grammar School sets forth that — 

" the liberal science or art of Grammar is the ground and fountain of 
all the other liberal arts or sciences, which source and spring out of 
the same; without which science, the others cannot perfectly be had, 
for Science of Grammar is the Gate by the which all other hath 
been learned and known." And further the deed complains " that 
the teaching of children in school had not been practised in that 
time for want of a sufficient schoolmaster or usher, so that the chil- 
dren having pregnant wits, have been for the most part brought up 
rudely and idly, and not in virtue, cunning, erudition, literature, and 
good manners." 

Louth. The preamble of the Charter of Edward VI., in 

founding a grammar school at Louth — a school which 
in later times has had the distinction of producing the 
poet Tennyson — sets forth the conception of a grammar 
school with more of breadth and liberality than was 
generally expressed, however distinctly intended, by many 
private founders. It is probable that the views of the 
Protector Somerset are traceable in the words: — 

" Whereas we have always coveted, with a most exceeding 
vehement and ardent desire, that good literature and discipline 
might be diffused and propagated through all the parts of our King- 
dom, as wherein the best government and administration of affairs 
consists, and therefore with no small earnestness have we been 
intent on the liberal institution of youth, that it may be brought up 
to science in places of our Kingdom most proper and suitable for 
such functions, it being as it were the foundation and growth of our 
Commonwealth, and having certain and unquestionable knowledge 



CJioice of Masters 231 



that our town of Louth is a place most fit and proper for such 
teaching and instructing, and is very populous, and well stocked 
with youth." 

And then follow the usual regulations about Latin, Greek, 
grammatical science, and godly learning generally. 

Fifty-one such foundations, including Sedbergh, Bir 
mingham, Tonbridge, Christ's Hospital, and Shrewsbury^ 
owe their origin to the six years of Edward VI. Twenty 
more were established during the reign of Philip and 
Mary, and no less than 136 others, including West- 
minster, Merchant Taylors', Bedford, Bristol, Colchester, 
Wakefield, and Aldenham in the reign of Elizabeth. 

With what seriousness of purpose the early reformers CJwice of 
of learning set about their task may be judged f rom ''^'^''^^''•^• 
the efforts made by Dean Colet to obtain masters well 
equipped with the necessary knowledge and teaching 
power. He had before founding St Paul's made choice, 
for the first High Master, of John Lyly, the friend and 
fellow-student of More, who had mastered the Latin 
language in Italy, and even travelled farther East, and 
lived in the island of Rhodes, to perfect his knowledge 
of Greek. He had at one time very nearly accepted the 
vows of a Carthusian monk; he was, however, thoroughly 
imbued with the pedagogic spirit, and was, in the opinion 
of Erasmus, a "thorough master in the art of educating 
youth." "I have often longed," said Colet, in a letter 
to Erasmus, "that the boys of my school should be 
educated in the way in which you say that they should be 
taught," and having found Lyly to possess needful quali- 
fications, he made, by his statutes, provision for what in 
those days was a very handsome stipend, in order to 
show his sense of the dignity of the office. 

" But an under-master was not so easy to find. Colet had 
written to Erasmus in September, 15 1 1, wishing him to look one out 



232 As chant and the Schools of the Renaissance 

for him. Erasmus wrote in October, and informed him that he had 
mentioned his want to some of the college dons. One of them had 
replied by sneeringly asking : ' Who would put up with the life of 
a schoolmaster who could get a living in any other way ? ' Where- 
upon Erasmus modestly urged that he thought the education of 
youth was the most honourable of all callings, and that there could 
be no labour more pleasing to God than the Christian training of 
boys. At which the Cambridge doctor turned up his nose in con- 
tempt, and scornfully replied ; ' If any one wants to give himself up 
entirely to the service of Christ, let him enter a monastery.' " 

" Erasmus ventured to question whether St Paul did not place 
true religion rather in works of charity — in doing as much good as 
possible to our neighbours ? The other rejected altogether so crude 
a notion, ' Behold,' said he, * we must leave all ; in that is perfection.' 
' He scarcely can be said to leave all,' promptly returned Erasmus, 
' who, when he has a chance of doing good to others, refuses the task 
because it is too humble in the eyes of the world.' ' And then,' wrote 
Erasmus, ' lest I should get into a quarrel, I bade the man good-bye.' " ^ 

In nearly all the instruments of foundation great 
stress is laid upon the qualifications of the master; 
he is always to be a grave and godly man, and of good 
repute. Archbishop Harsnet, in founding Chigwell, 
specially records his wish that the headmaster " shall 
be a graduate of one of the Universities, not under 
twenty-seven years of age, skilful in the Greek and 
Latin tongues, a good poet, of a sound religion, neither 
Papist nor Puritan, of a grave behaviour, of a sober and 
honest conversation, no tippler nor haunter of ale-houses, 
no puffer of tobacco, and, above all, one apt to teach, 
and severe in his government." 
The scheme It will be observed that in all the statutes and testa- 
of siudy. i;^-ients Qf this century the Greek and Latin languages are 
spoken of as the staple of the instruction to be given 
in grammar schools. Yet there was no theory about the 
disciplinal value of linguistic studies, no conscious selec- 

1 Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers. 



The Grammar School Qirriaihcm 233 



tion and preference for such studies, after weighing the 
claims of physics or mathematics or modern literature. 
These languages were to be taught because they were 
the key and passport to all the learning which was then 
extant, because they formed the only kind of study which 
had then been formulated and made definite. The Tri- 
^ium — Grammar, Dialectics, Rhetoric, and the Qiiadri- 
>i,inffi — Music, Arithmetic, Geometry and Astronomy, 
besides philosophy, ethics, history, might all in their way 
be useful parts of a gentleman's education; but no one 
of them could be learned at all except in the languages 
of Greece and Rome. Nor was the moral training to be 
dissociated in any way from the educational system. A 
serious religious purpose is frequently visible in the 
ordinances of the founders; grammar, good manners, 
virtue, religion, and purity of life are constantly enume- 
rated together, not as things to be taught independently 
by catechisms or creeds, but as objects to be obtained 
in and through the diligent study of language and the 
reading of the best ancient authors. 

When the founders and framers of statutes descended Deiails of 
to particulars, they often displayed a curious lack of^^^'^X"^/ 
imagination and forethought, and insisted on details of curricu- 
instruction which appeared to them at the moment the ^^"^' 
most in vogue, as if they were to become perpetual and 
were incapable of improvement. The subjects of instruc- 
tion, and even the books to be used, are often prescribed 
with great minuteness. For example the Ordinances of 
St Bees (1583) enjoin 

" the master to make his scholars perfect in the Latin and Greek 
grammar — using the Queen's grammar and accidence, as set forth by 
authority — Esop's Fables, then certain books of Cicero, then Sallust 
and Csesar, and afterwards Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and the poets, and 
the Greek Grammar of Cleonard." 



234 AscJiam and the Schools of the Renaissafice 

At Bruton all scholars were to be taught "gram- 
mar, after the form of Magdalen College, Oxford, or 
St Paul's, London, and not songs or polite learning, 
nor English reading; but to be made perfect Latin 
men." 

At East Retford (1551) the Statutes framed by an 
Archbishop of York enter fully into detail, and specify 
not only the books, but also the exact amount and 
order of the classical work for each form and class in 
the school. 

"The said Schoolmaster and Usher, or one of them to every Form 
of scholars, within the said Grammar School, shall teach these books 
and authors in order hereafter following, that is to say, unto their 
scholars of the First Form within the said Grammar School the figures 
and characters of letters, to join, write, sound, and pronounce the 
same plainly and perfectly. And immediately to learn the inflection 
of nouns and verbs, which, if it be done with diligence, a good and 
apt nature in one year may attain a perfect reading, pronouncing, 
and declining of nouns and verbs; and the more prone natures may 
spare some part of the first year to hear the explication of Tully's 
Epistles, and write and repeat certain Latin words out of them. 
Item, in the Second Yoxwi, after usual repetition of the inflection of 
nouns and verbs, which is attained in the First Form, a more full 
explication of the Syntaxis of Construction must be shewed, and 
the other hours of reading may be spent in the Colloquia Erasnii, 
and some harder Epistles of Tully, which must be dissolved and 
discussed verbatim, and the reason of every construction shewed. 
This Form is required to turn sentences from English to Latin. 
And further we ordain, that in this Form be taught the Scriptures, 
both the Old and New Testaments, Sallust, and Justinian's Institutes, 
if the Schoolmaster and Usher be seen in the same. Item, the 
said Schoolmaster or Usher shall read and teach unto the Third 
Form of scholars within the said Grammar School, the King's 
Majesty's Latin Grammar, Virgil, Ovid, and Tully's Epistles, Copia 
Erasmi verborum et rerum, or so many of the said authors as the 
said schoolmaster shall think convenient for the capacity and profit 
of his scholars, and every day to give unto his said scholars one 
English to be made into Latin. Item, the said Schoolmaster or 



Disputations 235 

Usher shall teach to the Fotir/h Form of scholars within the said 
Grammar School to know the breves and longs, and make verses, 
and they of this P'orm shall write every week some epistle in Latin, 
and give it to the said Master or Usher at the end of the week. 
And also the said Master shall teach the scholars of this Form the 
Greek Grammar, and also the Hebrew Grammar, if he be expert in 
the same, and some Greek authors, so far as his learning and con- 
venient time will serve thereunto." 

Disputations, or public exercises or appositions, were Disputa- 
a. favourite form of intellectual exercise, and were often ^^^'"' 
insisted on in deeds or statutes : e.g., Sir Roger Manwood 
(1580), in his regulations for the Sandwich Grammar 
School, ordains that 

" there shall annually be kept in the school disputations from 7 
to 9 in the forenoon, and the Master shall desire the Parsons and 
Vicars of the town, with one or two others of knowledge, to be 
present, if it please them, to hear the same. The disputation 
being ended, to determine which three of the whole number of 
forms have done best by the judgments of the Master and learned 
hearers." 

Then he makes further provision for prizes of silver pens 
to the best debaters, and wills 

" that the whole company go in order decently by two and two 
to the parish Church, the three victors to come last, next to the 
Master and Usher, each of them having a garland on his head, and 
then in the Church to kneel or stand, and to say or sing some con- 
venient Psalm or Hymne, with a Collect making mention of the 
Church, the realm, the prince, the town, and the founder." 

The ordinances of St Bees prescribe that every week 
two shall be appointed to declaim upon some theme an 
hour before dinner, and afterwards exhibit verses upon 
the same theme to the Master. 

There were also in many schools contentions as to 
the principles of grammar capping or "potting verses." 



I fig. 



236 Aschavi and the Schools of the Renaissance 

Strype, in his edition of Stow's Survey of Londo?i, says, 
speaking of Merchant Taylors' School : — 

" I myself have yearly seen the scholars of divers Grammar 
Schools repair unto the churchyard of St Bartholomew the Priory in 
Smithheld, where upon a bank boarded about under a tree, some 
one scholar hath stepped up and there hath opposed and answered 
till he were by some better scholar overcome and put down; and 
then the overcomer taking the place did like as the first, and in the 
end the best opposers and answerers had rewards. It made both 
good schoolmasters and also good scholars diligently to prepare 
themselves for the obtaining of such reward." 

Hours of It is very characteristic of the strenuous character of 
study and the discipline enjoined in the ancient grammar schools, 
/;^ and of the high — not to say severe — standard of duty 

and of work set up before the scholars, that the hours of 
study, and the days of relaxation, are often regulated in 
a rigid fashion which would be thought intolerable by 
the schoolmasters and pupils of later and more soft 
and self-indulgent times. The father of Francis Bacon 
(Sir Nicholas, the Lord Keeper in 1570) drew up the 
statutes of St Alban's School, in which inter alia it is 
prescribed : — 

"The Schoolmaster shall every learning day from the 25th of 
March unto the 30th of September be at the school by the stroke 
of 6 of the clock in the morning, and from September 30th to March 
25th by 7, and continue in teaching until 1 1 of the clock, and shall 
be at the school again by i of the clock in the afternoon, and shall 
abide there until 5 of the clock teaching." 

Sir Thomas Fanshaw's statutes for Dronfield, in 
Derbyshire, contain a like limitation as to the lawful 
holidays: — 

"I strictly inhibit the Schoolmaster and Usher, upon penalty of 
loss of their places, that they grant no otium or play days to their 
schofars upon any pretext, but I appoint that the scholars do every 



Vacatiojis 237 

Thursday and Saturday, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, play of course. 
And that there be no breaking up nor leaving of school, save only 
two days before the feast of Easter, two days before the feast of 
Pentecost, and four or five days before Christmas, and the school to 
begin again upon the Wednesday in Easter week, the Wednesday 
in the feast of Pentecost, and the first Monday after the twelfth 
day in Christmas, without delay." 

The long summer vacation, so dear to the modern Vacations. 
schoohTiaster, was unknown in the Elizabethan times, 
and if known would have been sternly denounced as 
effeminate and unreasonable. The Sandwich statutes 
ordain — 

"That neither the master nor usher, without license of the 
governors shall absent himself above twenty days in the year from 
the school, nor so much but upon good and urgent cause, and in 
that vacant time the one to supply the other's office upon some good 
convenient allowance as they can agree, so as both at once may not 
in any wise be absent from the said school." 

Indeed, holidays in any form are allowed as a rather 
grudging concession to human weakness, and when 
allowed are rather for the teachers than for the boys. 
Sir John Deane (1558), in the statutes for Wilton School 
(Cheshire), which he founded, is considerate enough to 
say: — 

" Because nothing that is perpetual is pleasant, I will that the 
schoolmaster shall have liberty once in every year thirty days to 
be altogether absent to recreate himself — he always providing that 
his scholars lose no time in his absence, but they be occupied in 
their books till his return." 

It need hardly be said that the rod was an essential Punish- 
part of the school apparatus. The corporate seals of '''^'^^•^• 
some endowed schools, e.g. of Uppingham (1584) and 
Louth (1552), represent the master with a rod in his 
hand. But the Chigwell ordinances, which, as I have 



238 AscJiain and the Schools of the Renaissance 

before said, were made by an Archbishop, and were 
of a later date, were humaner in their protest against 
severity. 

" We constitute and ordain that the schoolmasters do not exceed 
in their corrections above the number of three stripes with the rod at 
any one time ; that they strike not any scholar upon the head or the 
cheek with their fist or the palms of their hands upon pain or loss 
of forty shillings, to be defaulted by the governors out of their yearly 
wages; that they do not curse nor revile their scholars; that for 
speaking English in the Latin school, the scholar be corrected with 
tho^ ferula, and for swearing with the rod ; that monitors be appointed 
to note and present their rudeness, irreverent and indecent de- 
meanour in the streets, in the church, or their public sports." 

Herein we recognize one of the cardinal faults of the 
grammar school system, or at least one of the serious 
limitations to its usefulness. Except in Ascham's writings 
and in those of Mulcaster, who was (1561) the first head- 
master of Merchant Taylors' School, one finds little or no 
recognition of the importance of a good method of teach- 
ing. Certainly, there is no evidence that anybody thought 
it necessary to facilitate the early efforts of a schoolboy, 
or to make learning interesting or pleasant to him. 
Ascham indeed was a signal exception to this general 
rule. So much of the old spirit of monastic austerity 
— a spirit which measured the value of all discipline by 
its hardness and painfulness — survived in the schools, 
that one of the merits often claimed for classical 
teaching was the difficulty it presented to the learners. 
Many of the pedagogues of those centuries, down to 
Ichabod Crane, the switch of whose rod Washington 
Irving heard through the woods of Sleepy Hollow, as 
the " schoolmaster urged tardy loiterers over the flowery 
paths of learning," seem never to have been quite sure 
that they were doing justice to their scholars unless the 
lessons were made repulsive and distasteful. The belief 



Payment of Fees 239 



that the /'^^/difficulties of life are grave enough without 
burdening it with artificial difficulties, that time and 
labour might easily be economized by securing the willing 
co-operation of the student, and by adopting methods 
which should be pleasant as well as rational, has to some 
extent, but alas! not yet to the full extent, been at last 
recognized by modern teachers. But until this belief 
became prevalent, one could hardly expect that the tra- 
ditional gerund-grinding and memory work would be 
greatly improved. 

But, after all, the characteristic note of the schools Paymejti 
of the Renaissance was the generous desire of the ^-^^''^^• 
founders to make learning accessible to all scholars who 
could receive and make a right use of it, whether they 
were poor or rich. Most of the statutes are very impera- 
tive on this point. There is often a positive prohibition 
against the exaction of fees in any form. Sometimes a 
special fee or gratuity — the cockpenny or an Easter gift 
— is recognized as legitimate; and sometimes learning 
other than Latin and Greek — e.g., even reading and 
arithmetic — are permitted to count as extras, and to be 
paid for. But, as a rule, free grammar schools — although 
technically the word "free" does not exactly mean 
gratuitous, but often simply signifies exemption from 
ecclesiastical control — were understood to be places in 
which every scholar could claim admission without money 
or reward. Peter Blundell of Tiverton (1599), the founder 
of a school still famous, was very explicit in his directions 
on this subject. He limited the number of scholars to 
one hundred and fifty, and gave a preference for admis- 
sion to those brought up in the parish, but adds : — 

" If the same number be not filled up, the want shall be supplied 
with the children of foreigners if with the consent often householders 
of Tiverton. And my desire is that they will make choice of the 



240 As c ham and the Schools of the Renaissance 

children of such foreigners as are of honest reputation and fear God, 
without regarding the rich above the poor." 

And then, after providing a stipend of ;^5o to the head- 
master, and 20 marks for the usher, he adds: — 

"And my hope and desire and will is that they hold themselves 
satisfied and content with that recompense for their travail, without 
seeking or exacting any more either of parent or children, which 
procureth favour to givers and the contrary to such as do not or 
cannot give, for my meaning is that it shall be for ever a/r^v scJiool, 
and not a school of exaction." 

It is to Cranmer that we owe the first distinct utter- 
ance of the generous policy which afterwards inspired 
the sixteenth century donors and testators. " It came 
to pass," says Strype, "that when they should elect the 
children of the grammar school," in the newly-converted 
cathedral church of Canterbury, " there were of the com- 
missioners more than one or two who would have none 
admitted but sons and younger brethren of gentlemen," 
urging that "husbandmen's children were more meet for 
the plough, and to be artificers, than to occupy the place 
of the learned sort; for we have as much need of plough- 
men as of any other state, and all sorts of men may not 
go to school." To which Cranmer replied : — 

" I grant much of your meaning herein as needful in a Common- 
wealth, but yet utterly to exclude the ploughman's son and the poor 
man's son from the benefit of learning is as much as to say that 
Almighty God should not be at liberty to bestow His great gifts of 
grace upon any person, nor nowhere else but as we and other men 
shall appoint them to be employed according to our fancy, ami not 
according to His most godly will and pleasure, who giveth His gifts 
both of learning and other perfections in all sciences unto all kinds 
and states of people indifferently. Even so doth He many times 
withdraw from them and their posterity again those beneficial gifts 
if they be not thankful. Wherefore, if the gentleman's son be apt 
to learning, let him be admitted; if not apt, let the poor man's 
child, that is apt, enter his room." 



No provision for gii'ls' e ducat ioji 241 

And this sentiment of Cranmer's happily remained 
for generations the chief and most honourable charac- 
teristic of the ancient grammar schools. The education 
they afforded was suited to the sons of gentlemen; but 
it was not restricted to the sons of gentlemen. It might 
qualify a boy of any rank to acquire University distinc- 
tion, and to become a judge or a bishop. But no money 
was to be required of the pupil; no social distinctions 
were to be recognizable in the school itself; and it was 
one of the highest triumphs of the whole system, when 
the governors of a grammar school were able to point to 
a scholar of humble origin, who had been led by a love 
of learning, and tempted by the scholarships and en- 
couragements which the school offered, to quit the rank 
of artizan or ploughman, to acquire distinction, and to 
become able to serve God eminently in Church or State. 

But it need not be said, that for the sisters of these iVo pro- 
favoured scholars the grammar school made no provision ^'"^^"•v'' 

*^ ^ girls edu- 

whatever. They were not wanted to serve God in Church cation. 
or State. If they are mentioned at all in wills and 
statutes, it is that they may be definitely excluded from 
all participation in the benefits of the schools. Thus, 
John Lyon, in founding Harrow, says expressly, though, 
as it seems, quite superfluously, that no girls shall be 
received or taught in his school: and in Peter Blundell's 
statutes, relating to his foundation at Tiverton, he makes 
his own meaning on this point clear by stating that there 
shall be no scholars but boys. The truth is that the 
ordinary founder thought that there was no chance of 
mistake on this head, and that his will would be inter- 
preted — as indeed it always was — to apply as a matter 
of course to boys only. There was generally no intentional 
or explicit exclusion of their sisters, but the question of 
their inclusion scarcely ever arose, and does not seem to 

R 



242 AscJiam and the Schools of the Renaissance 

have occurred to anyone. At any rate, the Commis- 
sioners of 1865, who investigated the history and actual 
condition of endowed foundations, could not find one 
which had been deliberately designed to furnish a 
liberal education for girls, though they found many of the 
Charity schools of a later date admitting both boys and 
girls, and giving them the meagre rudiments of instruction 
supposed to be appropriate for labourers and servants. 
And if in this age we have arrived at the conclusion that 
a good and generous education is just as much needed 
by girls as by their brothers, and that it would in their 
case be quite as properly provided, and turned to equally 
valuable account, it is to the later experience, the awak- 
ened conscience, and the enlarged conception of duty in 
the nineteenth century, that the change is to be attributed, 
and not to any recourse to the measures or the ideals of 
the sixteenth. 
The It is mainly owing to the existence of the mediaeval 

5^7'^''^/'^^^ grammar schools, to the explicit directions in their 

School ^ 

theory. Statutes and deeds of gift, and to their intimate con- 
nexion with the Universities, that the type of education 
which they represented has survived so long, and has so 
dominated the popular conception of what scholarship 
and learning mean. A man who has been duly instructed 
in Latin and Greek is regarded as a scholar/^zr excellence, 
however ignorant he may be of other things; and another 
man skilled in science, accomplished in modern lan- 
guages, literature, and philosophy, but knowing no 
Greek, has no claim to be considered a scholar at all. 
Yet since the establishment of grammar schools, 
French, German, and English have acquired a literary 
character. Each has opened out to the student a noble 
literature, and has been made the subject of philological 
investigation. Our own language especially has been 



Modification of the Gi'ammar School theory 243 

traced to its source. What we still call (in spite of the 
late Professor P'reeman) Anglo-Saxon, with its fuller 
inflections and synthetic structure, has revealed to the 
English student the true meaning of those fragments of 
accidence and syntax which survive in our current speech. 
And in the presence of our existing resources, it is diffi- 
cult to deny that the student of one ancient language and 
one modern — say Latin and German, or Greek and 
French, or either Latin <?;• Greek and Anglo-Saxon — is in 
a better position, as far as philology is concerned, than if 
he confined all his linguistic studies to Latin and Greek. 
He will know at least as much of the philosophy of 
grammar, and of the principles which underlie the 
structure of all language, and he will certainly not have 
been less successfully disciplined in accuracy of expres- 
sion and of thought. 

It is impossible for us to overlook the claims of other 
subjects, and, as a matter of fact, one modern language 
at least, mathematics, and some acquaintance with the 
literature and history of the later centuries, form part of 
every scheme of liberal education, even when the claims 
of physical science are neglected altogether. But the 
effect of undertaking to do all this, and at the same time 
to maintain the superstition that Latin lUtd Greek must 
form the staple of every gentleman's education, is that 
some of these things must be learned imperfectly. And 
it often results that Greek and Latin are the subjects so 
learned. How many of the scholars of the grammar 
schools, or even of the Universities, could talk, write 
easily, or think in Latin? What proportion of those 
who learn Greek, read Sophocles or Homer with ease 
and pleasure and catch the full flavour and spirit of the 
language? A very large percentage of the scholars who 
go out from the Universities have carried their studies 



244 AscJiam and the Schools of the Renaissance 

far enough to acquire a knowledge of the grammar, and 

to read, by means of helps and commentaries, certain 

well-known and well-annotated authors; but they have 

stopped short at the point at which the learning of a 

language becomes a real instrument of literary culture, 

and produces an educational result at all commensurate 

with the time and effort expended in acquiring it. 

How far AVhen schoolmasters and professors insist on the 

should It importance of learning both the ancient lano^uages, and 

beinodified ^ ° . 007 

by later talk of them as the keys by which the whole literature of 

expert- Europe is to be opened, it would seem that they overlook 
ence? 1 1 ^ j 

the fact of the great differences in the claims of the two. 
The praise of symmetry and regularity of form does not 
apply equally to Greek and to Latin. There is in Greek 
a frequent tendency to deviate from rules and from the 
normal type, and to indulge in constructions which are 
not explicable by formal grammatical rules. The spirit 
of the Latin language has indeed entered deeply into the 
heart of our literature; has influenced the structure and 
vocabulary of our own language, and fashioned the 
modes of thought of all our greatest writers. But the 
same cannot be said of Greek. Except in our scieniific 
terminology, Greek has hardly influenced the English 
vocabulary at all. For the purpose of understanding 
that terminology it is in no sense necessary to learn the 
Greek language : a few days would suffice to give to the 
student enough of a dictionary or vocabulary to enable 
him to understand every English derivative from Greek. 
There remains of course the higher aim, that of acquir- 
ing an insight into the meaning of the philosophy, the 
oratory, and the poetry of ancient Greece. And it may 
well be admitted, that whenever this is possible of attain- 
ment, the study may prove of priceless value. But, 
except to the comparatively rare scholar, it is 7iot attain- 



Later Experience 245 

able. The literature of any language, if studied to any 
purpose, should be stimulating; it should give ideas, it 
should form taste, it should inspire the reader with a love 
of eloquence and poetry. Can it be seriously contended 
that the study of Greek in modern grammar schools and 
Universities carries the rank and file of the students to 
this point? The school-boy or the undergraduate, if he 
feels the beauty of ancient writing at all, recognizes the 
beauty of parts — often of very minute parts — but he sees 
and knows little or nothing of the literary product as a 
whole. He is preparing his mind for exercises in com- 
position and verse-making; his attention is devoted to 
minute points of quantity, to well-sounding epithets, 
to circumlocutions and mannerisms; and he is forced 
to regard his author under conditions as unfavourable as 
possible to the development of a true taste and the habit 
of just criticism. 

This point has been well insisted on and illustrated 
by Mr Henry Sidgwick, who adds : — 

" It is only at a certain stage in a youth's progress that Latin and 
Greek begin to give training in literature. In many cases the boy 
or the undergraduate never becomes able to extract and feed on the 
beauties of his authors. A mind exhausted with linguistic struggles 
is not in a state to receive delicate literary impressions ; instead of 
being penetrated with the subtle and simple graces of form, it is 
filled to the brim with thoughts of gender, quantity, tertiary predi- 
cates, and the uses of the subjunctive mood." ^ 

Such is the inbred conservatism of English scholar- 
ship, that there still remain many who are content with 
the ideal of the sixteenth century, whose sense of propor- 
tion is so imperfect that they look upon any product of 
more recent thought and experience as necessarily hav- 
ing in it a flavour of the upstart, the bourgeois^ and the 

1 Essay on the Theory of a Classical Education. 



246 AscJiaiu and the Schools of the Rejiaissance 



second-rate. Such persons — and they are many — would 
still maintain, in grammar and public schools, the con- 
ception of liberal study, and of the humanities, which 
prevailed when those schools were founded. That 
theory may be summed up shortly in three assumptions : 
(i) That the study of language is not only the one form 
of discipline which is supremely important, but it is 
important enough to justify the devotion of from three- 
fourths to five-sixths of the whole time of a learner from 
the age of six or seven to the end of his University course ; 
(2) that this discipline can only be rightly obtained by 
the study of /zt:'(9 ancient languages; and (3) that in order 
to obtain a true mastery of these two languages, it is 
essential that the scholar should not only read them, but 
write, and, in particular, should compose verses in them. 
This is the form in which the ideal of liberal study 
inherited from the sixteenth century still exists among 
us. It is not to be believed that the founders of ancient 
grammar schools, if they lived now and could fashion their 
plans in the presence of modern facts and experience, 
would ask us to accept such a theory of education as 
this. Nor is it easy to believe that the theory in the 
same form can survive much longer. 
Iloivvuich What, then, can survive, or ought to survive, from 
of it should ^^^ sixteenth-century scheme of a liberal and humane 
training? Much, it may be hoped. This in the first 
place : That the systematic study of language ought to 
hold a high place, perhaps even the highest place, among 
formative educational agencies. Moreover, such study is 
indispensable, not only because language is the instru- 
ment for the expression of our thoughts, but because it is 
the main instrument for accurate thinking on any subject 
at all. Further, the fullest and best insight into the 
philosophy of language is not to be had from the study 



survive 



Hoiv miicJi should survive ? 247 



of a modern and analytic language alone, but is to be 
best attained by the comparison of such a language with 
a synthetic and highly inflected language. The best and 
most fruitful studies are those which are not limited to 
their immediate object, but those which tend to carry 
the learner further into other regions of thought, and to 
shed light on subjects other than themselves. And the 
study of language fulfils this condition in an eminent 
degree. For, since all possible human know^ledge 
requires language for its exponent, there are no sciences 
with which grammar and philology are not concerned, or 
which do not gain help and light from whatever exercises 
give precision and clearness to a student's use of words. 
Lastly, it is to be borne in mind that, of all forms of 
intellectual exercise, those which touch the imagination, 
which refine the taste and literary perception, which 
place the learner in closer sympathy with the great writers 
and thinkers of former ages, — the humanities, in short 
— furnish the best possible corrective to much of the 
materialism of modern science, and are a standing and 
ever-needed vindication of the truth that "a man's life 
consisteth not in the abundance of things that he pos- 
sesseth," but chiefly in ideas, in high and large thoughts, 
in memories of what is best in the past, and in visions of 
what is best in the future. All this was recognized and 
aimed at, more or less successfully, by the founders of 
grammar schools. All this, we may hope, English 
schools and schoolmasters will continue to aim at for 
generations yet to come, even though the traditional 
supremacy of Greek and Latin, and the belief in the 
educative value of Latin versification, may come to be. 
rudely questioned, and even to a large extent abandoned. 
Whatever happens, we may not forget that what the 
sixteenth century gave to her children was her very best. 



248 AscJiam and the Schools of the Renaissance 



The founders of grammar schools and framersof statutes 
looked round them at such intellectual resources as were 
then in existence. They asked themselves what had 
been the influences which had contributed most to 
the making of the writers, the lawyers, the divines, the 
statesmen of their time, and they sought to place these 
influences within the reach of every member of the 
community who coveted them, and who would know 
how to use them. No higher standard of duty can be 
present to us who are their successors. We too are 
bound to give to our children the best we have. But 
our best is not the same as that which Colet and Erasmus, 
which Cecil or Somerset, which Ascham or Sidney knew. 
Between us and them there lie three centuries of unex- 
ampled mental activity and productiveness. The world 
has been enriched by new knowledge and new thoughts, 
with material discoveries, with poetry, with history, with 
speculations unknown to the contemporaries of Elizabeth. 
We have simply to do with our resources and experience 
what they did with theirs — what they would certainly 
have done had they lived in our time. We have to clear 
our minds of illusions, to ask ourselves which of all these 
resources is best calculated to help our children in living 
a noble, useful, and intelligent life. Having done this, 
it behoves us to use these resources to the utmost, in the 
full belief that our successors in their turn will be able to 
emancipate themselves from all which is not really helpful 
in the traditions of the past, and will shape their plans in 
the light of their own experience, and of the altered 
conditions and new wants of the coming generations. 



LECTURE VIII 

TEACHERS' INSTITUTES AND CONVENTIONS 
IN AMERICA 1 

Conditions of education in the United States. Teachers trained and 
untrained. Institutes. Henry Barnard. Scope and aim of the 
Institutes. Voluntary associations of teachers. Co-operation 
of the clergy and public men. Summary of general purpose of 
Conventions. Newport, Rhode Island. The College Associa- 
tion of Philadelphia. St John, New Brunswick. Chautauqua. 
Reading Circles. Absence of educational politics. The cor- 
porate spirit among teachers. The Teachers' Guild and its 
future. 

When I was honoured with a request from your 
Council to give a lecture at this meeting, I could not 
help being reminded that since I last addressed any- 
meeting of the Guild, I had enjoyed opportunities of 
witnessing several gatherings of teachers on the other 
side of the Atlantic; and it seemed to me that a brief 
account of some of this experience might not be in- 
appropriate or unwelcome to-day. The Teachers' Guild 
represents the first serious attempt in England to bring 
together teachers of all ranks, and to enable them to 
interchange experience. It aims at helping them to feel 

1 Address at the Annual Meeting of the Teachers' Guild. June, 
1889. 

249 



250 Teachers' Institutes and Ccviventions 

confidence in each other, and to co-operate, not so much 
for the defence of professional interests, as for the 
furtherance of the public interests — the interests of the 
children committed to their charge, and the improve- 
ment in the aims and methods of education generally. 
Now these objects are sought in a large degree by many 
American teachers; but they are attained by means very 
different from those which would be available in this 
country. We cannot hope to make true progress by 
simply imitating the institutions and usages which seem 
to us admirable in other lands. Every nation has its 
own problems, its own traditions, and history, and it 
must shape its course in a wholly eclectic fashion; 
studying, no doubt, with respectful interest, institutions 
and methods which have succeeded elsewhere; but using 
such observations rather with a view to find suggestion 
and right impulse, than with any intention to become 
copyists. All institutions which are worth anything must 
grow and adapt themselves to their environment, and to 
the special needs and experience of those who have to 
use them. They cannot be manufactured all at once. 
Conditions \ have, in another place, ^ described in some detail 
///// in the ^^ special conditions under which education is con- 
United ducted and organized in America. It will sufifice here 
to mention two or three preliminary facts which need to 
be taken into account whenever we try to discuss edu- 
cational phenomena in that country. There is, to begin 
with, no such thing as an American system of education. 
The Federal Government has accepted no responsibility 
in the matter of public instruction. Each of the 42 States 
is, we must remember, in many respects, a sovereign State, 
making its own laws, raising its own taxes, appointing 

1 In Notes on American Schools and Training Colleges appended 
to the Reports of the Education Department for 1889. 



Education in the United States 251 



its own public officers, and perfectly free to form its own 
conception of what education ought to be, how it is to 
be provided, and how far it shall be enforced. And 
even the States are subdivided; for often a single county, 
or township, and always a city of any consequence, has 
its own separate Board or School Committee, charged 
with the administration of the school fund of the district, 
and practically independent of all other bodies. There 
is no central authority, which can co-ordinate these 
various agencies or bring them into harmony. The 
school system is an essentially local organization. One 
State or City may be favourable to normal training, and 
may make a liberal provision for training colleges. 
Another may be without them altogether. And every 
normal college is exclusively a local institution. It trains 
teachers for employment in the particular city or district 
in which it is established, and its certificate or diploma 
is valid only in that city or district. There is no gen- 
erally recognized standard of qualification for the pro- 
fession of a teacher. Nor, indeed, is any well-known 
standard of scholarship connoted by a university degree; 
for every one of the separate colleges and universities 
in the States confers its own distinctions on its own 
pupils in accordance with regulations made by itself. 

In like manner each of the several provinces of 
Canada has its legislature, which raises and appropriates 
the school fund, and makes its own laws. There are 
normal schools, and arrangements for the certification of 
qualified teachers; but all these depend on the initiative 
of the several provinces. So neither the Dominion 
Parliament at Ottawa nor the Federal Government at 
Washington is concerned with the organization of public 
instruction for the whole country. That is the business 
of the province, the state, the city, or some still smaller 



252 Teachers' Institutes and Conventions 

administrative unit. Hence, there are to be found in all 
parts of tiie North American Continent, local patriotism, 
local rivalry, and often very original and vigorous enter- 
prise, but also great inequalities. As in the great broad 
land itself, so you have in the field of education, many 
fertile and promising, but some comparatively barren 
and neglected tracts; and the first duty of everyone who 
attempts to speak on such a subject is to guard himself 
against the temptation to generalize too rapidly, or to 
make comprehensive inductions on data in themselves 
so various and so widely separated. 
Teachers, Another point which should be borne in mind is, 

trained or ^ ^ number of persons who, in America, devote 
untrained. ^ ' 

their lives to the profession of teaching, is, relatively to 

the population, smaller than in England, and the average 
stay of teachers in the ranks is proportionately smaller. 
Unless a man has special ability such as justifies him in 
expecting to be a master in a high school, or a professor 
in a college, he is much more likely than his English 
brother to be attracted, after two or three years' teaching, 
to commerce, to the press, or to the pulpit. And the 
period during which female teachers — who constiUiie 
about five-sixths of the staff of what in England we should 
call elementary schools — remain in the profession is much 
shorter. Very few women remain, or would be allowed 
to remain, in the profession after marriage, and it is 
computed that the average duration of their service in 
elementary schools does not exceed three years. In 
these circumstances it is not surprising that com- 
paratively few of the teachers are willing to undergo any 
laborious training by way of preparation for so transi- 
tory an employment. As a matter of fact, not more 
than one-tenth of the teachers in the common schools of 
America have been specially trained in normal seminaries; 



Institutes 253 

and of these some have devoted two or four years, but 
some only twelve, six, or only three months to such 
special preparation. The normal schools are seldom or 
never residential institutions; much of their training is 
general and academical, and has no exclusive bearing 
on professional work; and many of them are attended 
by considerable numbers of students who do not propose 
to follow the calling of a teacher, but who wish to avail 
themselves of the excellent teaching of the lecturers in 
non-professional subjects. 

Nevertheless, a belief in the paramount importance 
of special preparation for the teacher's ofifice, is very 
strong throughout all parts of America, and is daily 
becoming stronger and more general. This belief finds 
expression in many ways, notably in the existence of 
institutes, teachers' associations, and conventions, read- 
ing circles, and other means whereby the lack of regular 
normal training and discipline is, in some cases, largely 
compensated, and the training itself, in the case of 
those who have enjoyed it, is supplemented and made 
effective. 

By an " institute " in America is meant a normal Institutes. 
class, held periodically for the teachers of a district, and 
furnishing instruction in the art and practice of edu- 
cation, and an opportunity for the discussion of methods. 
These institutes are, in fact, migratory and occasional 
academies, and they were brought into existence before 
any regular normal schools were founded. The first 
meeting of this kind was held in Hartford, in Con- 
necticut, as far back as 1839, by Henry Barnard, who 
was the Secretary to the State Board of Education, and 
who gathered together twenty-six young teachers in the 
public schools, and provided for them, during several 
weeks, a course of lectures, reviewing the topics usually 



2 54 Teachers' Institutes and Conventions 

taught in the common schools, and furnishing some in- 
struction in method, supplemented by visits of observa- 
Henry tion to the public schools of the city. I ought, in passing, 
to say how much the literature of education owes to 
Mr Barnard, who has during a long life spent himself, 
and, I fear, much of his fortune too, in efforts to reprint 
costly works and monographs on education. It was a 
great pleasure to me to see this educational veteran at 
a meeting of teachers in Rhode Island, and to find him 
still, in his honoured old age, as keenly interested as 
ever in the advancement of educational science and in 
the practical improvement of scholastic methods. The 
example he set was imitated at first in a rather fitful 
and hesitating way, but afterwards more systematically. 
The earliest of these gatherings w^ere purely volun- 
tary on the part of the teachers, and grew out of 
the endeavour to qualify themselves for their work; 
but soon, during the first decade, several of the New 
England States began to make it an obligation on the 
younger teachers to attend them, and the management 
of them was placed in the charge of the school superin- 
tendents, or other officers appointed for the purpose. 
By degrees the system spread, at first to the Southern, 
and afterwards to the Western States, and the "Teachers' 
Institute " is now a recognized factor in the educational 
system throughout the Union, and in the Dominion of 
Canada. The data for any safe general statement in 
reference to them are somewhat scattered, diverse, and 
obscure. In a few States institutes are not legally re- 
quired to be held at all; in some, institutes are incorpo- 
rated into State or District systems, and in others into 
County systems. In some they are held under State 
authority, and in others under local authority. In some 
cases the expenses are paid by State funds, in others by 



TJieii' Scope and Aim 255 

county funds, in others by contributions from the teachers, 
and in others by the fees for teachers' licenses. In some 
cases the institutes are held at a fixed time, when the 
schools are closed, and in others they are held at any 
time the local authorities may choose, and when the 
schools are in session. In some, the schools are closed 
during the sessions of the institute, in others they remain 
open. In some, the teachers are paid for attending, 
or fined for not attending; in others neither course is 
pursued. Some of them are held by voluntary or private 
persons, and others — now by far the greater number — 
by the official superintendent of the district, or under his 
direction. The time devoted to them also varies ma- 
terially. In many States provision is made for an annual 
session of from three to six days, and in a few for a session 
of two, or even three weeks. In other States the teachers 
are required to meet monthly, or once in two months, 
for two or three hours in the evening or on Saturday. 

But, though diverse in all these respects, the oh]tQXScope and 
to be attained and the method of attaining it are practi- ^'^''^''-^ ^^"^ 
cally uniform. They are designed, in the first place 
and mainly, for the help of the large number of teachers 
who have not been trained in normal seminaries; and, in 
the second place, for the help of those who have been so 
trained. "Their aim," says a recent report of the Com- 
missioner, " is to revive the spirit and confidence of 
teachers, awaken a pride in the profession, stimulate to 
self-improvement, and by a progressive course of study 
and instruction review the branches taught in the schools, 
and increase the practical requirements of the teachers." 
Accordingly it is the duty of each official school super- 
intendent, or district inspector, to classify the teachers 
of his district, and to gather into their several classes 
those who take up the work of each standard or grade. 



256 TcacJicrs Listitutcs and Conventions 

A young teacher, it must be observed, is, on admission, 
examined and certified, with a view to her service in 
a class of a given grade. She cannot take charge of a 
higher class without a further examination, and a higher 
diploma. While attached to a particular class, it is her 
duty to attend the lessons at the Institute s]')ecially 
adapted to the work of that particular grade, so that 
in each department the young people are receiving in- 
struction in method, in so far as it is applicable to 
the work of their own classes. Besides this, collective 
instruction is given occasionally on larger questions 
relating to the general principles of teaching and organi- 
zation. But, on the whole, it may be said that "Insti- 
tutes," in the American sense, while not designed in 
any way to supersede regular normal training, furnish, 
in many cases, a useful supplement to it, and in many 
more, help in an appreciable degree, to supply the lack 
of such training. I should add that the various boards 
and school authorities seldom appoint a man to the 
office of school Superintendent or Inspector who is not 
competent to direct and hold such institutes, and to 
lecture to the teachers on method. 
Voluntary Besides these local institutes, which are essentially 
associa- normal classes, engaged in a good deal of merely technical 

tions of , , • . . 1 11 • • 

teachers, work, there are in America other and larger organizations, 
of a wholly voluntary kind, which, though mainly, are 
not exclusively composed of teachers, and which seek 
to elucidate the higher and more general aspects of 
education, and to bring the teaching profession into 
due relations with all the more advanced thought of the 
country, with the prof essors of her universities, and with 
the best of her writers and her clergy. Foremost amongst 
these was the New England Association of Teachers, 
which has subsequently changed its name to the American 



Co-operation of public men 257 

Institute of Instruction. It was founded in 1830 at 
Boston, and the first meeting, attended by 300 persons, 
chiefly from the Eastern States, was presided over by 
the well-known Dr Wayland, the President- of IJrecon 
University. In his introductory address he struck the 
keynote of the whole enterprise, and foreshadowed with 
clear insight the future history of an Association, which, 
after 58 years of growth, is to-day more flourishing and 
influential than ever. He said : — 

" In the long train of her joyous anniversaries New England has 
yet beheld no one more illustrious than this. We have assembled 
to-day, not to proclaim how well our fathers have done, but to 
enquire how we may enable her sons to do better. . . . We have 
come up here, to the City of the Pilgrims, to ask how we may ren- 
der their children more worthy of their ancestors, and more pleasin,*; 
to their God. We meet to give to each other the right hand of 
fellowship in carrying forward this all-important work, and here to 
leave our professional pledge, that if the succeeding generations do 
not act worthily the guilt shall not rest upon those who are now the 
instructors of New England." 

In the four days during which the meeting lasted these 
were the subjects discussed: — Physical education; the 
development of the intellectual faculties in connexion 
with the teaching of geography; the infant school system; 
the spelling of words, and a rational method of teaching 
their meaning; lyceums and literary societies, and their 
connexion with the school; practical methods of teaching 
rhetoric, geometry, and algebra; the monitorial system; 
vocal music; classical learning; arithmetic; the con- 
struction and furnishing of school-rooms. Very early Co-opera- 
in the history of the Association it was resolved that ^'^'^ ^/ ''^''^ 

11 r 11 1 • • 11 clergy ana 

the clergy of all denominations, and the representatives ofpzMic 
of the press in the neighbourhood in which the meeting ^''^'^• 
was held should be invited. Among the lecturers who 
spoke before the Association, during its early years. 
s 



258 Teachers' histitittes and Conventions 

I find the names of Jacob Abbott, whose books many of 
us delighted in as children; of Noah Webster, the lexicog- 
rapher; of George Ticknor; of Spurzheim, the German 
philosopher; of Calhoun, the statesman, who lectured 
on the duties of school committees; of Lowell Mason, 
who advocated the introduction of music into the common 
school; of Judge Story, on the science of Government 
as a branch of general education; of Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, on the best mode of inspiring a correct taste 
in English literature; of Horace Mann, on the necessity 
of previous study to parents and teachers; of John 
Philbrick, on school government; of George Sumner, on 
the state of education in some countries of Europe; of 
Gideon Thayer, on the means of awakening in the minds 
of parents a deeper interest in the education of their 
children; of Miss Peabody, on Kindergarten, the Gospel 
for children; and of Henry Ward Beecher, on the New 
Profession. From the numerous other topics treated 
at these annual meetings I select a few characteristic 
examples : — 

The study of the classics; training the human voice; 
the number of hours a day to be devoted to instruction; 
the sources of personal power; the self -education of the 
teacher; the legitimate influence of schools on com- 
merce, on agriculture, on manufactures, on civil polity, 
and on morals; the cultivation of a sense of honour among 
pupils; the right and wrong use of text-books; the rights 
of the taught; oral teaching; the co-education of the 
sexes; drawing not an accomplishment, but a language 
for the graphic representation of facts and a means of 
<^ . developing taste; psychology in relation to teaching. 

of general As I look down through the annals of this Association 
ptirposes J ^.^ struck with two or three facts: (i) That it has suc- 

oj suck ^ 

meetings, ceeded in enlisting the co-operation and sympathy, not 



Meeting at Nezvporty Rhode Island 259 

only of teachers of all ranks, from the primary school 
to the University, but of nearly all the most prominent 
thinkers, public writers, clergy, statesmen, and lawyers 
in the States. (2) That its peripatetic character has 
enabled it from year to year to break new ground, to 
awaken new local interest, and to exercise a missionary 
influence on the improvement of education throughout 
the whole country. (3) That the subjects of discussion 
are mainly practical, and have a direct bearing on the 
improvement of school methods, but that many of them 
are of a larger and more speculative kind, selected with a 
view to enlarge the intellectual horizon of the members, 
and to find new meeting-points between the world of the 
school-room and the world of thought and of commercial 
and intellectual activity outside of the school. (4) That 
in all the topics of discussion I fail to find one which 
touches the question of the payment of the teacher or 
his pecuniary or professional interests. 

I had the great pleasure in 1888 of attending \.\\t Meeting at 
58th annual gathering of this thriving Association. At^^^^^^'^' 
Newport, in Rhode Island, there were assembled during 
four days about a thousand members, including the 
teachers of primary and grammar schools, the professors 
in the chief colleges and universities in the New England 
States, the principal teachers and authorities of the nor- 
mal schools, and nearly all the school superintendents 
and ofificial inspectors. With these were associated a 
few public men, such as the Mayor of Newport, and the 
State Commissioner, members of School Boards and 
Committees, and the like. There were animated general 
meetings at the beginning and end of each day, for 
lectures and addresses on the more popular aspects of 
education; and throughout the day sectional meetings, 
in three or four groups, for papers and discussions on 



26o Teachers' Institutes and Coitventio7is 

special topics. A simple and touching religious exercise 
introduced each day's proceedings, and there was at 
times hearty choral singing, which, with one or two 
excursions at the end, constituted the only dissipations 
of the assemblage. The subjects were of the same 
general character as I have already described, and I 
was especially struck in observing the terms of perfect 
freedom and equality subsisting between the teachers of 
all classes and the public officials concerned in the 
administration of the various State systems. 
The Another very characteristic meeting at which I had 

/s-uifa- ^^^ opportunity of being present, was that of the College 
Hon at Association of Pennsylvania, now enlarged in its scope 
thla ^ ^^ '"^^ ^^ include the Colleges and Universities of the 
Middle States and Maryland. It was held in the magni- 
ficent University buildings in Philadelphia, and after an 
address of welcome from the Provost of the University, 
proceeded to discuss seriously, during two or three days, a 
number of topics especially concerned with higher educa- 
tion. Among these were the place of History in a college 
course; the influence of Endowments on education; the 
German University of to-day; Post-graduate courses; 
Pedagogics as a part of a college curriculum ; the educa- 
tion of Women in colleges; the proper requirements for 
admission to a college course. The treatment of these 
topics was serious, and both scientific and practical; 
there was full recognition of great principles, and yet an 
anxious attempt to see those principles in the light of the 
actual problems of a professor's life. 
St John, An equally significant experience awaited us when 

Bruns- ^^^ crossed the northern boundary of the State of Maine, 
-Mick. and found ourselves in the Dominion of Canada. At 
St John, New Brunswick, was held in July a conven- 
tion of all the teachers of the maritime provinces of New 



St JoJin^ New Brunswick 261 

Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward's Island. 
Here, again, the gathering comprehended teachers of all 
ranks, from the primary teacher to the University prin- 
cipal and professor, the State superintendents, all the 
inspectors of schools, and a number of public men, 
including the Governor of the Province, and Ministers 
both of the Provincial and of the Dominion Govern- 
ments. There were some twelve hundred persons at the 
opening and closing meetings. But the sectional dis- 
cussions throughout the day were largely attended, and 
were concerned with many important points of detail, 
which were earnestly debated. There was a special 
section devoted to the investigation of infant teaching 
and discipline, and at this meeting some papers, read 
by female teachers of experience, were of unusual merit 
and suggestiveness. Another section devoted itself to 
the consideration of the work of normal schools; another 
to questions relating to the teaching of different branches 
of natural science; another to the ornamentation, fur- 
nishing, and equipment of the common school, and to 
the right use of its playgrounds and accessories; and 
another to the consideration of modes of inspecting and 
examining school organization and work. 

It was interesting to observe, in Canada, no less than 
in the States, how much of stimulus and encouragement 
teachers, especially the younger members of the pro- 
fession, derived from these gatherings; how many new 
and germinating ideas were disseminated, how many 
valuable friendships were formed, and to how large an 
extent public opinion, both within and without the pro- 
fession, was helped, strengthened, and ennobled. All 
through the Dominion of .Canada, as well as through the 
States of the Union, scores of such local meetings are 
to be found seriously at work during the first, second. 



262 Teachers' Institutes and Conventioiis 

and third weeks of the summer holiday; and it was 
specially cheering to see such eager and enthusiastic 
companies of hard-worked teachers, who, after a long 
session, and in the hot weather of July, voluntarily dedi- 
cated the first few days of their well-earned vacation to 
self-improvement and to professional fellowship. It must 
be owned that the American has a genius for organizing 
conventions, and that all sections of the community find 
greater delight in attending them than we of the old world 
are wont to experience. The popularity of such conven- 
tions seems to increase year by year. There is now, besides 
the various local gatherings in States and in groups of 
States, a National Educational Association, which or- 
ganizes every year a collective gathering on a huge 
scale at some great centre, one year at Chicago, another 
at Boston, another at St Louis, and once at San Fran- 
cisco. Some thousands of teachers spent three, four, 
or five days in travelling across the continent from 
different parts, in order to attend the great congress, 
which lasted from the 17th to the 28th of July. Ihe 
programme is so elaborate that a mere summary of it 
would — if I were so rash as to attempt to give it — 
occupy all the time at my disposal to-day. I can only 
ask those of you who have ever attended a British 
Association Meeting here at home, and who remember 
its elaborate arrangements for receptions, sections, de- 
partments, sub-committees, public harangues, excursions, 
and social arrangements, to imagine such a meeting on 
a still larger scale, if you wish to form a notion of the 
National Convention of Teachers. Such great gatherings 
are suited to the soil, and fit in better with the habits 
and social arrangements of America than with those of 
England. But I think they grow out of a genuine zeal 
for the improvement of education, and out of a re pub 



CJiautauqna 263 

lican sentiment that every man who has got anything 
good to say, or has made a useful invention or discov- 
ery, is bound to communicate it to his fellow-teachers, 
and to invite their criticisms upon it. 

I have elsewhere described ^ the curious, but very chautau- 
characteristic American institution known as the Chau- ?"^- 
tauqua Summer Assembly. In the north-west of the 
great State of New York a clearance has been made 
in the "forest primaeval," and near the shore of a little 
lake. Here during July and August may be seen an 
encampment of from eight to ten thousand persons, living 
in tents or wooden cottages, and forming themselves daily 
into classes and reading parties, working in laboratories, 
studying in small companies in a library, or listening 
to lectures. They have a number of separate rooms for 
different kinds of study or manual work, a gymnasium, 
and a vast amphitheatre, rudely fashioned on the curved 
slope of a hill, with a roof, and one wall on the side of 
which there is an organ and a platform, but otherwise 
open to the air and the woods. It is one of the most 
memorable and affecting of my American experiences to 
have addressed six thousand people in this sheltered 
place, to have heard their voices as they uplifted a psalm, 
while the ancient trees waved and rustled all round them 
in the summer twilight, and to have witnessed the hearty 
enthusiasm, wherewith the whole of this large company, 
comprising persons of all ages, shared the simple recrea- 
tions of the place, and yet seemed all bent on efforts 
after self-improvement. The Assembly is, as many of 
you know, the parent of many similar local assemblies, 
and the headquarters of a vast organization, extending 
through the whole length and breadth of the Union, and 
of the Canadian Dominion, and known as the Chautauqua 
1 In the AHncteenth Century for October, 18S8. 



264 Teachers' Institutes and Conventions 

Reading Circle. Its members, upwards of 100,000 in 
number, are scattered all over the American Continent, 
and their one tie of association is that they all pledge 
themselves to read every year a certain set of four or five 
books, to write papers in the form of resume, criticism, 
or account of what they have read. Afterwards, when 
opportunity offers, they meet from time to time, to read the 
books together, to discuss their contents, and, if possible, 
to obtain from some competent professor or schoolmaster 
an occasional lecture in elucidation of one of the pre- 
scribed books. This is not the occasion for any detailed 
description of the Association. It has, as many of you 
know, been a remarkably successful enterprise, has de- 
veloped among many persons who have had few oppor- 
tunities of early study a sense of intellectual fellowship 
with other self-taught and striving students, and has 
exercised a far-reaching influence on the mental life and 
thought of the American people. A very characteristic 
address delivered to the assembled students by the late 
revered Bishop Phillips Brooks of Massachusetts, con- 
tained a passage which well describes the influence 
exerted by the great Reading Union on the home life of 
the American community and on its educational ideals : 

" I see busy households, where the daily care has been lightened 
and inspired by the few moments caught every day for earnest study. 
I see chambers which a single open book fills with light like a 
burning candle. I see workshops where the toil is all the more 
faithful because of the higher ambition which fills the toiler's heart. 
1 see parents and children drawn closer to one another, in their 
common pursuit of the same truth, their common delight in the same 
ideas. I see hearts young and old kindling with deepened insights 
into life and broadening with enlarged outlooks over the richness of 
history, and the beauty of the world. Happy fellowships in study, 
self conquests, self discoveries, brave resolutions, faithful devotions 
to ideals and hopes — all these I see as I look abroad upon this 



Reading Circles 265 



multitude of faces of the students of the great College of Chau- 
tauqua." 

But it is notable that the whole movement began 
18 years ago in the form of a voluntary association of 
teachers chiefly connected with Sunday-schools, who met 
together for the study of the Bible, and for mutual con- 
ference about the best mode of giving religious instruc- 
tion. Very soon it was found that masters and mistresses 
employed in the primary schools and grammar schools 
of the States wished to associate themselves with the 
Assembly; and the Teacheis' Retreat was organized, partly 
for summer rest and congenial fellowship, but mainly for 
the systematic reading of the best educational literature, 
and for the discussion of the methods and processes of 
education. So, during the two months of the Assembly, 
about two weeks are annually appropriated to the mem- 
bers of the teaching profession, and year by year the 
number of such persons to be found at Chautauqua 
increases. Out of this experiment grew in time a 
Teachers^ Reading Union, for the benefit of those who 
were too widely scattered to give personal attendance 
at the meeting. This department of the whole work of 
the institution is separately organized : — 

" It suggests the names of suitable books, facilitates the circula- 
tion of them among the members, provides three regular and several 
advanced courses of professional reading ; the book-work being 
supplemented by written correspondence, and records of experience, 
and by special counsels forwarded by the professors to the members. 
For the annual fee of one dollar, each member is entitled to receive 
during the year seven such communications in answer to questions, 
or in explanation of difficulties." 

This example has been extensively followed. The 
"Teachers' Reading Circle" is now recognized every- 
where as the most valuable agency for the improvement 
of the rural schools, and as a humble, but not ineffective, 



i66 Teachers' Institutes and Conventions 



substitute for normal training. The report of the Com- 
missioner of Education says that, in the case of country 
teachers, " Whatever knowledge they obtain of the theory 
of teaching, and whatever promptings they receive to 
enter on the study of mind, and to learn something of 
the laws of its growth, may be set down largely to the 
creditof theReadingCircle." President AUyn, of Illinois, 
says, "The work of the Teachers' Reading Circles is in 
the direction of healthful mental and moral progress. No 
one can read a good book without profit, and when such 
a book is in the line of one's life-work, it is both insj)ira- 
tion and motive power." As these views have i)tcv;iik(l, 
the system has, during the last seven or eight years, becu 
largely extended. Ohio and Wisconsin were among the 
earliest States to form State Teachers' Reading Circles. 
Indiana soon followed, and at present more lluin twenty 
States have formally adopted the \A\.\\\. It is estimated 
that at least 75,000 teachers in the United States are 
reading methodically and systematically works having 
special relation to professional and general culture. 
Kran'iiig J abridge from the last Rej^ort presented to Congress 

by the Commissioner of I'xlucation the following par- 
ticulars respecting the formation and work of these 
associations : — 

"The objects of the .State Teachers' Reading Circles are sub- 
stantially the same, namely, the improvement of the members in 
literary, scientific, and iM\)fossional kno\vk'(lij;e, and the promotion 
of habits of self-cultvire. This end is souj;ht by prescribing a cer- 
tain course of study, securing bt)oks at reduced rales, preparing lists 
of the best educational publications, by oflcring atlvice and directit^n 
as to the methods of reading and study, by examinations of the work 
done, and by certificates of proficiency. 

" The act of organizing the State Circle has generally been 
accomplished at the annual assem])ly of the State Teachers' Associa- 
tions, anil the work is usually ranird on under the control of this 



Circ/cs. 



The Teachers' National Reading Circle 267 



association. Directors and boards of management are chosen, wlio 
map out the course and direct the work of the circle. County and 
local circles are also formed, subsidiary to the general or State cir- 
cle, and even individual members may pursue the course alone. 

" The conditions of membership are liberal, any teacher or other 
person being received who promises to pursue the prescribed course 
of study, and pays the small fee — usually 25 cents or 50 cents 
annually. Meetings of local circles for conference, discussion, and 
review are held once a week in some States, and bi-weekly in others. 
The course of study is usually outlined and published in the educa- 
tional journals, and in the county papers. 

, " In the preparation of these outlines, a department of study is 
under the special supervision of some member of the State Board. 
The object of this study is twofold, namely, professional and general 
culture. As for the prominence given to one or the other of these 
subjects, that is determined by the actual needs of the teachers. 
The fourth year's reading (1886 — 87) for the Ohio Teachers' Reading 
Circle is given herewith, to indicate the general scope of such studies. 

" Psychology. — Sully's ' Teacher's Handbook of Psychology.' 

*^ Literature. — 'Hamlet,' and 'As You Like It.' Selections 
from Wordsworth. 

" History. — Barnes's * Brief General History of the World,' or 
Thalheiner's ' General History.' 

" Political Economy. — Gregory's ' Political Economy,' or Cha- 
pin's * First Principles of Political Economy,' with at least one 
educational periodical. 

" In a majority of the States provision is made for stated exami- 
nations of the work performed, and certificates are awarded with 
diplomas upon completion of the course. «v 

"The Union Reading Circle, z. paper published in the interests 
of this work, reports (June, 1887) three new societies in Georgia, 
two in Kentucky, five in Iowa, and twelve others in as many difter- 
ent States. Memorial days are now the fashion; the poets lUyant, 
Longfellow, and Tennyson, with Dickens and other literary men, 
receiving their share of honour in various places. The Agassiz 
Society of Philadelphia promises to make the summer vacation an 
opportunity for scientific research and study, and each one will 
contribute towards the common museum. The Gesenius, a new 
circle of Cleveland, makes Hebrew a specialty, as the Xenophon 
Society carries on the systematic study of Greek. The Curtis 



268 Teachers' Institutes and Convejitions 

Society of Buffalo, N. Y. , studies politics, and discusses all questions 
of reform. The Tulane Home Study and Reading Society is organ- 
ized, with headquarters at Tulane University, New Orleans, La. 

" Besides the State associations, others claiming a national char- 
acter have been organized. In 1885, the Teachers' National Read- 
ing Circle was legally incorporated under the laws of New York. 
Prof. W. H. Payne, of Michigan, was chosen President, supported 
by 18 directors, constituting the official board. This organization 
provides 18 courses of reading, 6 being professional, 3 in general 
culture, and 9 non-professional. In the first, 27 books are recom- 
mended. Each course includes 3 groups of studies, 2 books in 
each group, and any course (3 books for the year) may be 
taken by the reader. Diplomas will be granted to members who 
pass the three different examinations in some one prescribed course, 
and who prepare an accepted thesis on some educational topic 
connected with the reading. . . . One or two of the educational 
departments of Canada prescribe a course of reading for teachers, 
purely voluntary, and hence followed by no examinations. The 
department provides, however, that ' should the teachers of any 
inspectorial division agree to read the course with this end in view, 
and should the county board of examiners make adequate provi- 
sion for such examination, the department would recognize, by spe- 
cial certificate, this additional element of professional culture.' " 

Absence of It will be observed that all the organizations I have 
cduca- described — local institutes, general conventions, readin^^ 
politics, circles, teachers' retreats — set before them two objects, 
and two objects only, self -improvement, and the improve- 
ment of education. There is a remarkable absence in 
America of discussions on what may be called the politics 
of education, or on the means of obtaining professional 
influence outside the profession itself. And it is to this 
singleness of purpose, to the essentially practical aim of 
these organized meetings, that one may fairly attribute 
the interest which is universally shown in them, the 
warm and respectful vvelcome which they receive from 
parents and local authorities as they itinerate from town 
to town, the large share of importance assigned to the 



TJie corporate spirit among teachers 269 

meetings in the local press, and the extent to which the 
influence of the teaching body has steadily been enlarged 
during the last sixty years. Public opinion, after all, 
evinces a true instinct when it shows — as it always does 
— a certain distrust of trading and professional associa- 
tions, obviously designed to keep up the scale of remu- 
neration, to assert corporate rights and privileges, or 
otherwise to protect class interests. Outsiders have a 
suspicion that these interests are not necessarily or always 
identical with the larger interests of the community. 
The Teachers' Guild in England, we may confidently 
hope, will do much to dispel this suspicion. 

It cannot, of course, be doubted that the creation of The 
a corporate spirit, a consciousness of brotherly unity '^^^''^^'^^^'^'^ 
among all classes of teachers, is in itself a worthy oh]ec\. among 
to attain. But esprit de corps, though a good thing, ^^^^^''^^^• 
is a thing of which one can easily have too much, 
and there are at least some callings in which a body of 
traditional and professional etiquette has grown up and 
proved to be rather a hindrance than a help to public 
usefulness. So, also, it is natural that to some minds the 
great attraction of a corporate body like this is the hope 
that it holds out of winning for the teaching profession 
a higher social position and influence. But, after all, 
social status and influence are not to be had by demand- 
ing them, or by complaining that they are withheld, but 
simply by deserving them, and by the silent and sure 
method of improving the personal qualifications of those 
who wish for them. Much is often said, too, of the 
importance of an organization which will bring the col- 
lective opinion of the great teaching body to bear on the 
solution of public questions, and enable scholastic author- 
ities to speak with one voice on points on which outside 
opinion has to be formed, and public measures are 



270 Teachers' Institutes and Conventions 

contemplated. There may, no doubt, be times when such 
expressions of opinion are needed; but they are rare; 
and when they occur, it will probably be found that 
unanimity of judgment is as little attainable within the 
precincts of the profession as without them, and that it 
is by the utterances of a few of the wisest, rather than by 
the resolutions of large bodies, that, in the long run, 
opinion is formed, great measures are initiated, and 
reforms are effected. There is, for example, the much- 
debated question, how the aid granted by Parliament 
should be assessed, and on what conditions it should be 
distributed among our common schools. There are the 
relative merits of inspection and of examination as tests 
of school work. These are, of course, legitimate and 
interesting subjects of public discussion. But, after all, 
they chiefly concern Parliament, which makes the grant, 
and managers, who receive and expend it. It is only in 
a very limited degree that these matters affect those who, 
as members of the Teachers' Guild, are concerned chiefly 
with the interior work and efficiency of schools. Under 
any imaginable regulations for dispensing the public 
grant, it will always be true that good teaching is possible, 
and that improvement is possible. To teachers it will 
ever be the first duty to make the school efficient, by 
bringing to bear upon it all their highest powers, their 
widest reading, and the best of their thought and ex- 
perience. To examiners, universities, inspectors, and 
public authorities who are called on to direct education, 
or to test, or to criticise, the first duty is to be fair and 
just, to recognize impartially all forms of good work, and 
to encourage every honest effort. And for all classes 
alike, the main business is to co-operate cordially in the 
trial of new experiments, in the making of fruitful dis- 
coveries, and in the fulfilment of a great public duty. 



TJie Teachers' Guild 27 1 



The Teachers' Guild has before it, I believe, a great The 

Teac 
Gtnld. 



career of honour, and of public beneficence. By the ^^^^^^^''•^' 



comprehensiveness of its aim it may hope to enlist the 
co-operation of teachers of all ranks, to break down 
artificial barriers, such as tend to keep the labourers in 
the different parts of the scholastic field apart, and to 
show that every true principle in the philosophy of 
education, when once understood, is applicable alike to 
all real teaching, from the kindergarten to the universities. 
By means of its libraries, and its local conferences, as 
well as in other ways, the Guild can do much to encourage 
younger teachers in their efforts after self-improvement, 
and to make them familiar with the best experience of 
their predecessors. And by the help of its public dis- 
cussions, by the welcome it gives to all new speculations, 
by its readiness to diffuse right principles, it can help 
to make the work of teaching in schools easier, more 
delightful, and more efficient. It may also sustain, in the 
teaching profession and out of it, a loftier purpose, and a 
larger and nobler ideal than has ever yet been realized, 
of what a complete and generous education ought to be. 
Other forms of honourable ambition may yet disclose 
themselves; other claims on public estimation and grati- 
tude may yet be established. Higher claims it can never 
have. And it is only by stedfastly aiming at the highest 
that the lower aims, either in the life of a man or of an 
institution, can be understood in their true proportions, 
or can ever be successfully attained. 



LECTURE IX 

EDWARD THRING^ 

The biographical method of studying educational history. Arnold 
andThring. Outlinesof Thring's life. His biographers. Fel- 
lowships at King's College, Cambridge. Early practice in a 
National School. True principles of teaching applicable to 
schools of all grades. Uppingham. Boarding-houses. The 
School largely the product of private adventure. The Royal 
Commissioners. The Hegira. Uppingham by the sea. The 
teaching of English. Every boy good for something. Variety 
of employment and of games. Encouragement of music and 
the fine arts. The decoration of the school-room. Honour to 
lessons. Thring's books. His fancies. Characteristic extracts. 
Diaries. The Head-Masters' Conference. Head-Mistresses. 
Women as teachers. Settlement at North Woolwich. The 
Uppingham School Society. The prize system. 

The bio- '^^^ Student of educational history and of the opinions 

graphical which have from time to time prevailed respecting the 
^l\udvinz prii"iciples and methods of teaching does well to fasten his 
educa- attention occasionally on the career of some representa- 
Mst^rv ^^^^ teacher whose doings and ideas may be regarded 
as characteristic of the times in which he lived, or 
whose personal influence may have helped to deter- 
mine the course of thought and of action pursued by 
other teachers. This is a method of investigation which 
has been adopted with singular success by Compayr^, by 

1 Address before the College of Preceptors. 

272 



Arnold and Thring 273 

Mr Quick and by Mr Oscar Browning, and in Mr Heine- 
mann's Series of " Great Educators," and it has the great 
advantage of setting before us, in a concrete and personal 
form, views and tendencies which would otherwise be 
less intelligible. 

Two names will always remain prominently associated Arnold 
with the public school education in the England of the Vjl, . 
nineteenth century, those of Dr Arnold and Edward 
Thring. Both men were educated in ancient Grammar 
Schools, steeped in the traditions of the ^j-enaissance ' — 
the one at Eton and the other at Winchester. Both owed 
their best intellectual possessions to the classical training 
they had thus received. Yet both were conscious of the 
defects of that training, and each sought in his own way 
to enlarge and ennoble the conception of what a great 
public school ought to be; and while holding fast to the 
belief that the study of the languages of Greece and 
Rome should form the staple of a liberal education, both 
endeavoured to understand the changed circumstances 
and the new requirements of our own age, and to adapt 
their systems of teaching and discipline to those require- 
ments. Both were characterized by intense earnestness 
of purpose, by profound faith in the importance of their 
own office, and by a religious consecration of their best 
powers to the duties of that office. But they differed 
greatly in temperament and in personal gifts; and also in 
the width and range of their sympathies. Arnold was a 
fighting Paladin, entering with ardour into the political 
and theological controversies of his time. Both as a 
public writer and as Professor of Modern History at 
Oxford, he was a conspicuous figure in the world outside 
of Rugby. Thring on the contrary was identified heart 
and soul with Uppingham, and is known to the outer 
world only in connexion with it and not as a student or 

T 



274 Edward Thring 



as an author. All his literary work also had relation to his 
profession as a schoolmaster; and he is one of that small 
class of eminent teachers who have not only achieved 
practical success, but have also written copiously on the 
principles and practice of the art which they professed. 
He never obtained or sought ecclesiastical preferment. 

All the combative powers of his life were employed 
in contests with the governing body of his school, with 
parents, with masters, and with Royal Commissions, 
and other public authorities. There are few more notable 
examples in the history of English public schools, of the 
entire concentration of all the powers and ambition of a 
life upon one school. I have elsewhere sought to esti- 
mate the influence of Thomas Arnold ^ on education; and 
within the necessary limit of one lecture, we may with 
advantage try to unfold the reasons why the name of 
Thring will always be honourably associated with his in 
the history of this waning century. 
Outline of There is the less reason to enter into general biogra- 

Thring's p^ical detail, because the story of his life has been written 
life. 

with care and sympathy, and with somewhat unusual 

fulness of detail, by his friend Mr G. R. Parkin; and has 
been further elucidated in a volume entitled A Memory 
of Edward Tlirijig^ by his affectionate friend — Mr J. 
H. Skrine, at first a pupil, afterwards a colleague — as 
master in the School. Another writer, one who knew and 
understood him well — the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley — has 
written a small monograph entitled Edward Thring, 
Teacher and Poet, which is characterized by delicate 
and just appreciation. All these books deserve a perma- 
nent place in the hagiology of the scholastic profession. 
It will therefore suffice for my present purpose to assume 

1 In "Thomas and Matthew Arnold and their influence in Eng- 
lish Education." 



OiLtline of TJiring's life 275 



that their contents are generally known and to recall 
here in briefest summary the main incidents of his life. 
He was born in 182 1, and was the son of John dale 
Thring, the Rector and Squire of the parish of Alford in 
Somersetshire. Part of his education was received at 
the small endowed grammar school at Ilminster, and 
part at Eton, where he became by the end of his school 
life the head boy of the Collegers, and Captain of Monten 
in 1 84 1, nearly the last year of that famous celebration. 
He proceeded duly to King's College, Cambridge, gained 
the Porson prize for Greek Iambics, and was elected a FidlowsJdp 
Fellow of the College. It is very characteristic of him ^^^^^''^•^* 
that, being a distinguished Etonian and a Fellow of 
King's College, he was foremost in denouncing and 
in ultimately abolishing a special privilege to which, 
in accordance with the traditions of the University, he was 
entitled. For three centuries. Scholars of King's had been 
allowed to proceed to a degree without examination. 
But Thring while yet in residence as a Fellow, objected 
strongly to the continuance of this anomalous and 
antiquated usage, and wrote more than one pamphlet 
pointing out the mischief done by it to the true interests 
of learning, and advocating its entire abolition. It was 
generally believed that had he been subjected to the 
ordinary degree examination, he would have proved 
himself the most distinguished Classical Scholar of his 
year. His protest therefore against the continuance of 
the exceptional privilege enjoyed by his own College 
was all the more effective. But Universities are habitu- 
ally cautious and conservative; and it was not till three 
years after^ in 185 1, that the full consent to this reform 
was obtained from the Provost and Fellows. Ever rrince 
the King's Scholars from Eton have obtained their 
degrees, like other undergraduates, by passing the ordi- 
nary examinations of the University. 



2j6 Edward Thring 



In 1846 he was ordained, and took a curacy in 
Gloucester, and after a short interval, in which like Arnold 
he was engaged privately as a tutor preparing candidates 
for the public schools, he was appointed in 1853 to be 
Head Master of the School at Uppingham — an ancient 
foundation of the sixteenth century, with a modest en- 
dowment of less that ^1000 per annum, which then 
sustained a small school in mean and narrow buildings, 
with twenty-five boys and two masters and very little 
reputation. How in the course of thirty-four years, he 
contrived to develop this poor obscure little institution 
into one of the most influential public schools in England, 
W4th upwards of three hundred scholars, thirty masters, 
eleven boarding-houses, a noble chapel and library, and 
ample equipment for recreation and teaching, may be 
gathered from the books I have named. It will here 
sufifice to refer to those features of his life's work, which 
seem to have special value by way of example and sug- 
gestion to those who are to be his successors. 
Early Among these, one may cite his earliest experience as 

aNathnal^ teacher. When a Curate in the city of Gloucester it 
School. was part of his duty to teach regularly in the elementary 
school of the parish; and he ever afterwards regarded 
the expedience thus gained as the most important part of 
his professional training. 

" Everything," he said, " I most value of teaching thought, and 
teaching practice, and teaching experience, came from this teaching 
work daily in the National Schools. Never shall I forget those 
schools in the suburbs of Gloucester, and their little class-room, with 
its solemn problem, no more difficult one in the world : how on 
earth the Cambridge Honour man, with his success and his brain- 
world, was to get at the minds of those little labourers' sons, with 
their unfurnished heads, and no time to give. They gave me the 
great axiom : 'The worse the material, the greater the skill of the 
worker.' They called out the useful dictum Avith which I ever silently 
stepped over the threshold: 'If these fellows don't learn, it's my 



Practice in a National School 2^^ 

fault.' 77iey disentangled all the loose threads of knowledge in my 
brain, and forced me to wind each separately in its place, with its 
beginning and its end. 77iey bred in me a supreme contempt for 
knowledge-lumps, and for emptying out knowledge-lumps in a heap, 
like stones at the roadside, and calling it teaching. They made me 
hate the long array of hne words, which lesson-givers ask, and pupils 
answer, and neither really know the meaning of. They taught me 
how different knowing is from being able to make others know. 
Nay, they taught me the more valuable lesson still, how different 
knowledge which can be produced to an examiner is from knowledge 
M'hich knows itself, and understands its own life and growth. There 
1 learnt the great secret of St Augustine's golden key, which, though 
it be of gold, is useless unless it fits the wards of the lock. And I 
found the wards I had to fit, the wards of my lock, which had to be 
opened, the minds of those little street boys, very queer and tortu- 
ous affairs ; and I had to set about cutting and chipping myself into 
the wooden key, which should have the one merit of a key, how- 
ever common it might look, the merit of fitting the lock, and unlock- 
ing the minds, and opening the shut chambers of the heart." ^ 

It may well be doubted whether the truth which 
accident thus brought home to Thring's life- long con- 
viction is sufficiently recognized by teachers. We are 
hampered too much by pedantic attempts at the exact 
delimitation of primary, secondary, and academic educa- 
tion. The members of the teachers' profession them- 
selves are tempted to regard the practitioners in these 
several departments, as if they formed distinct classes 
socially and intellectually, having few or no common 
interests. The truth is that the teaching which seems 
lowest and most elementary requires the highest gifts 
and make the largest demands on the genius and power 
of a teacher. The ways of approach to the intelligence, 
the sympathies, and the conscience of learners may 
often be learned more thoroughly among those of the 
humblest rank, than among those whose standard of life 

^ Presidential Address to the Education Society in 1886. 



278 Edwm^d T living 



and thought is already determined by the fact that they 
come from intelligent homes. And when right methods 
are discovered, it is always found that they are applicable 
to all grades of learners alike. 
Trtie Thring's personal experience on this point throws 

of teachiiKr'^^^^^ light on a problem which in the near future will 
applicable demand the serious consideration of educational author- 
p-rades of i^^^^- ^^^^ ^^^ accustomed to deplore the mistakes made 
schools. by young assistant masters in public schools, who come 
fresh from the Universities and try their " prentice hand " 
upon the lower forms, before attempting to obtain any 
training or guidance in the art of teaching and even 
before believing that such training would be of any 
service to them. Ere long we may hope that the need 
of systematic preparation for the schoolmaster's work will 
be as universally recognized in the upper as in the lower 
regions of educational experience. And in the millen- 
nium when this principle is once admitted and the ques- 
tion arises, " What sort of training will best suit the needs 
of those who are destined to be the teachers in higher 
and intermediate schools?" it will be seen that a truly 
scientific pedagogy takes little heed of conventional and 
social distinctions, and does not care much to enquire 
to what grade of schools or even to what group of sub- 
jects a teacher intends to devote himself. Principles 
and methods which are right in the primary school, are 
capable, with very little modification, of being applied 
in schools of the highest rank and pretensions. After 
all, natural endowments are happily to be found impar- 
tially distributed among children of all ranks. Hence, 
the young graduate fresh from the contest for University 
honours, who aspires to the highest place in his pro- 
fession, will not do well to disdain to spend a little 
time and gather a little experience in a good elementary 



Upp ingham 2 79 

school. He will there learn some things which as a 
form-master at Eton or Harrow he could not learn. He 
will gain notions respecting organization and the handling 
of large classes, and will see in action some devices for 
planning lessons, and for securing attention and disci- 
pline, which will help much to widen his own view of 
the possibilities of his profession, and to suggest to him 
some modifications of the time-honoured routine of a 
purely classical school. 

From the first when at the age of 32 he assumed the Upping- 
ferule at Uppingham he formed a very clear conception 
of the work of a public school, and determined to make 
Uppingham in some respects an example of what such a 
school should be. He thought that most of the schools of 
the highest rank were too large; and that consequently 
due regard to the character and needs of the individual 
scholar was impossible in them. He regarded 300 as 
the maximum number for such a school, and he reso- 
lutely resisted all temptation to exceed 320. Up to this 
number, every boy added to the efifiiciency of the school, 
but beyond this number he deemed every additional pupil 
was a drag and a hindrance and rendered it less possible 
for the masters to know and study special capabilities. 
This maximum was reached in 1865, when he had been in 
office eleven years. " I have no right," he said, "to take 
a boy away from his parents and accept the responsibility 
of training him unless I can know him well." "A mob 
of boys cannot be educated." "Every boy should feel 
that he is known." For this reason he also desired to 
limit the number of boarders in any house to thirty. 
This rule was very unwelcome to some of his masters, 
seeing that they derived their chief income from the 
boarding fees, and it served as an occasion for some 
friction between him and his staff. His diary, Nov. 3, 



28o Edzvard TJiring 



1874, contains this entry: "I said to the masters that 
nothing would induce me to admit an extra boy in any 
house. This last I think most of; because I feel sure 
that my work here will be overthrown on this very point 
of numbers, and I am glad therefore of every opportunity 
of bearing witness to my conviction that it is destruc- 
tion of all my work." 
Boarding- In fact the conditions under which the masters were 
louses. appointed were not without danger. His colleagues were 
not salaried assistants, but men who possessed capital 
and had been invited by him to invest considerable sums 
in the building of boarding-houses, and to contribute 
liberally to the general equipment and development of 
the school. They were thus not only assistant masters, 
but partners in a commercial venture. Probably this was 
the only way in which Thring could realize his ideal in a 
school with a small endowment, an apathetic governing 
body, and no great traditions or repute. But it was not 
a good way; and the fact that he was obliged to adopt 
it, illustrates a weak point in the polity of many of our 
public schools. The masters look to the profits on 
boarders as their chief source of revenue ; their pecuniary 
success depends at least as much on their skill as caterers 
and lodging-house keepers as on their gifts and powers 
as teachers. The fact that they have invested money in 
a private enterprise gives them a vested interest; and 
makes it very difficult to dismiss them if they prove 
educationally incompetent. It is manifest that these are 
conditions which might prove highly unfavourable to the 
interests of a school. Boarding-houses should be the 
property of the school governors, and the masters should 
be tenants merely holding ofifice quavidiu se be7ie gesseiint, 
their tenure being dependent on their proved fitness and 
personal influence as teachers, and not on any other 



Boa rding-Jiotiscs 281 



consideration. This arrangement was impossible at 
Uppingham, owing to the special circumstances of its 
history and resources, and to the financial risks which 
his colleagues had incurred. But the readers of Thring's 
diary will be made painfully aware that his relations to 
those colleagues were often seriously complicated by the 
conditions under which he was obliged to work, and by 
the fact that notwithstanding the pains he took to select 
as colleagues, men in sympathy with his own aims, and 
qualified by character and enthusiasm, their personal 
interests were not always identical with what he thought 
to be the interests of the school, or with the fulfilment of 
his own most cherished ideal. The truth is that Upping- 
ham School as we now know it occupies the unusual 
position of a public institution that has largely grown out 
of a private enterprise. 

In a letter to Lord Lyttelton quoted by Mr Parkin The school 
the head-master says truly : ^ " Other schools have as they l^^'g^jytj^^ 

■' ■' . -^ product of 

grew, and it became possible to do so, employed private ^rzVa/^ 
property gradually, and when any large sum has been ^^^'^'^^^''^* 
thus invested, the expenditure has been spread over 
several generations and most of the original contributors 
are in their graves. But Uppingham is an instance of a 
special school system, based on most distinct principles, 
being begun when a school was at its lowest ebb, carried 
out steadily through adversity and prosperity, till all the 
educational work has practically become quite indepen- 
dent of any necessity of foundation aid, though for 
reasons other than pecuniary, such aid seems to me very 
important. The work too has been done in one gener- 
ation, and the men still live whose property and lives 
have been thus contributed to the work, when most unex- 

1 Parkin's Life of Edward Thring, Vol. i. p. 180. 



282 Edward Thring 



pectedly Government steps forward to deal with the ques- 
tion." It is not wonderful that Thring should regard 
the legislation of 1869 as mischievous, or at least inop- 
portune, although the revelations made by the previous 
Commission of Inquiry showed tne absolute need for such 
legislation, in the case of scores of decaying and worth- 
less educational endowments in all parts of the country. 
But the case of Uppingham was wholly exceptional. In 
one sense it was virtually a proprietary school, owing 
its creation to the genius and courage of one man and 
to the capital and the personal efforts of his partners and 
himself.^ It owed little to the accident of its possessing 
a small endowment, an ancient foundation, a pious 
founder, and an external governing body. With these 
alone, it might have long remained an obscure little 
country grammar school of the second or third rank. 
Yet these were the circumstances which brought the 
foundation within the purview of the Endowed Schools 
Act, and gave to it its only chance of recognition among 
the historical public schools of England. 
Royal Thring's mistake lay in the supposition that he could 

Coinmis- secure at the same time for himself all the prestige and 
influence of a great public institution, and all the freedom 
and independence of a private schoolmaster carrying on 
a commercial venture of his own. He did not consider 
that if Uppingham had been merely the product of his 
own enterprise and that of his friends, it would have been 
untouched by legislation or by the Royal Commission. 
He would have been perfectly free to carry out his own 
plans, to be the chief manager of a joint-stock establish- 

1 A document prepared by the assistant-masters for the informa- 
tion of the Commissioners stat d, that " of the present school-build- 
ings the Trust has contributed 8| per cent., and Mr Thring and his 
masters 91^- per cent." 



SIOJIS. 



Royal Commissions 283 

ment which at his death might become extinct, or be 
sold in the market. But it could not then have aspired 
to become, what in fact he contrived to make it, a public 
school. Yet all his life he chafed under the restrictions 
imposed by his Board of Governors, the requirements 
of Commissioners, and the supposed intentions of the 
Endowed Schools Act, some of which he did not even 
take the pains to understand. Yet these were the 
only conditions under which the great ambition of 
his life could possibly be fulfilled. He never ceased to 
denounce the "dead hand of outside power thrust into 
the heart-strings of a living work." Speaking of the 
Schools Inquiry Commission he said: "How ridiculous 
it will seem in years to come appointing a lot of squires 
and a stray lord or two to gather promiscuous evidence 
on an intricate professional question, and sum up, and 
pronounce an infallible judgment upon it. However, 
this is the English panacea now, — this witches' caldron, 
and small hope it gives." * * "I claim that the skilled 
workers, each in his own trade, shall be well represented 
in the management of the trade and not interfered with 
by external unintelligent power in carrying on the trade. " ^ 
That a strong and sensitive man, conscious of power, 
justly proud of the success he had achieved, and confident 
in himself and in the principles on which he had acted, 
should thus feel a distrust of all outside educational 
authority, is intelligible enough. He was wholly out of 
sympathy with all modern movements for the legal 
organization of secondary education and for the exami- 
nation and inspection of schools by public authority. 
All such expedients appeared to him to restrict harmfully 
the lawful liberty of the teacher. But he left out of view 

1 Letter to Lord Lyttelton, December 6, 1872. 



284 Edzvard Thriiig 



other considerations not less important. Country gentle- 
men and members of Parliament have after all some 
interest in the efficiency of national education, and are 
competent to form some judgment on the feelings and 
wishes of parents and on the educational needs of the 
community. A man need not be a tailor, to know 
whether his coat fits and is well made or not. Nor is it 
necessary to be a schoolmaster, in order to be a valuable 
member of the governing body of a school. If all schools 
were like Uppingham there would be little or no need 
for legal control; but for the rank and file of teachers 
and of schools, all the accumulated testimony served to 
show that some such control is salutary. Moreover, the 
extent and nature of this control were carefully restricted. 
There is no conclusion on which the members of Royal 
Commissions have been more decided, than that it 
was the business of trustees to elect the best man they 
could obtain, and that having got him they should trust 
him and leave him practically responsible and unfettered. 
Indeed every scheme issued by the Commissioners under 
the Endowed Schools Act contains the distinct provision 
that " the Head Master shall have under his control the 
method of teaching, the arrangement of classes and 
school hours, and generally the whole internal organiza- 
tion, management, and discipline of the school, and shall 
have authority over all scholars attending the same in all 
places and at all times during the school terms." All 
experience proves that under these provisions, the head- 
masters of endowed schools enjoy much more of prac- 
tical independence, than the proprietors of private 
schools whose only concern is to satisfy the parents of 
their scholars. 
The One memorable incident in the history of the school 

He^ira. illustrates well the masterfulness and courage as well as 



The flight to Borth 285 



the administrative skill which distinguished Thring. All 
was going well in 1875 \ difficulties — financial and other 
— had been overcome, the school was full, and was becom- 
ing recognized as the pioneer of a new era in public edu- 
cation; but in the autumn symptoms of serious illness 
began to appear, many boys sickened and three died of 
what proved to be typhoid fever. It was evident that 
the drainage of the town, which had been greatly neglected 
by the local authorities, was responsible for the epidemic, 
and the boys were hastily dismissed early in November. 
For three months the unwonted vacation lasted, and 
during this time some more or less futile efforts were 
made, though reluctantly, by the ratepayers, to improve 
the sanitary condition of the town. At the end of the 
next January the school re-assembled, but in less than a 
month the danger re-appeared and the final dispersal of 
the scholars and the financial ruin of the house masters 
seemed to be imminent; when Thring promptly took his 
staff into council, and said to them boldly, " We cannot 
stay here, we must flit." One of them, Mr J. H. Skrine, 
writing long after, said: — 

*' Reader, you perhaps have never spent four or five months 
watching your fortunes crumble to pieces, while you asked help of 
local authorities and got vituperation, while at the doors of metro- 
politan departments you waited on the law's delays ; while scrib- 
blers in county journals vented an ancient spleen in rancid jokes, 
and you bit your tongue, while you could neither do anything nor 
make others do it, though a child could see what wanted doing, l)ut 
must dangle about in melancholy malodorous streets, or daily tramp 
to the * borings' for news of clean water, to be daily disappointed; 
and all this hateful while must watch an inglorious ruin drawing 
nearer and nearer for hopes to which men had given the best of a 
life. Why then you may hardly guess, with what a bound of spirit 
we sprang at something to do." ^ 



1 J. H. Skrine, p. 177. 



286 Edward TJiring 



With the alacrity and promptitude of a soldier, Thring 
at once prepared his plan, " I want to dismiss the school 
for a three weeks' holiday and then call it together on 
some healthy spot, by the sea ii possible, which we must 
find and get ready for them in that time. You all see the 
risks and responsibilities of the venture. Will you take 
them ? " And all the members of his loyal staff responded 
"Aye." Fortunately a little village was found on the 
Cardiganshire coast, with a big empty hotel, and some 
unused lodging-houses. Thither he decided to flee. 
Ten days later a goods' train unloaded there the belong- 
ings of three hundred boys, as well as of thirty masters 
and their families, and in a few days all the needful 
furniture and equipment of a school were added, so that 
at the end of the prescribed three weeks, all was ready 
for opening and the exodus was an accomplished fact. 
" You are on a campaign, " he said to the boys, " and must 
play the soldier and put up with hardship without 
grumble. Remember you are making history. This is a 
great experiment, and perhaps others will some day imi- 
tate it. Shew them how to do it ! " Hazardous as the 
experiment was it proved to be signally successful. The 
boys were loyally determined to adapt themselves to 
their new circumstances. Parents were stedfast and 
sympathetic, so that hardly one pupil was withdrawn, 
and Thring himself rejoiced to find in the moun- 
tains and the sea, and the large liberty which could be 
enjoyed on this remote coast, new educational resources, 
of which he availed himself to the utmost. Out of the 
nettle danger, he like many another brave spirit contrived 
to pluck the flower safety. His exhilaration expressed 
itself in a characteristic manner in certain '' Borth lyrics." 
Here is a stanza from one of them : — 



UppingJiani by the Sea 287 

" East and West and North and South, 
As if we were shot from a cannon's mouth. 
Hurrah, Hurrah, here we all are. 
Never was heard in peace or war, 

The first in the world are we. 
Never, oh never, was heard before, 
Since a ball was a ball 
And a wall a wall, 
And a boy to play was free, 
That a school as old as an old oak tree, 
Fast by the roots was flung up in the air, 
Up in the air \\ithout thought or care. 
And pitched on its feet by the sea, the sea, 
Pitched on its feet by the sea." 

" So Uppingham was left, and faces were set towards Borth. 
At Borth, of course, everyone was on the qui vive about the strange 
colony that was coming in so suddenly in this rolling lump. Very 
kind and very willing was the reception given by the little village 
to the school pioneers; and right well they worked. Workers, 
indeed, were wanted, for, if anyone wishes for a new experience, 
let him try the unloading and re-arranging eighteen railway trucks, 
and the distribution of their contents among twelve or fourteen 
houses in a fierce match against time. This was all done and 
finished off between Tuesday, 28th March, and Tuesday, 4th April. 
The great hotel was arranged to receive 150 boys, the head-master 
and his family, an assistant-master, and two matrons. A row of 
lodging-houses flanking the hotel take another 150 boys, and most 
of the masters; long narrow tables are run down the hotel passage 
on the ground floor, the large coffee-rooms and the billiard-room 
below are treated in the same way, and 350 people — boys, masters 
and masters' families — dine at one time by this extemporized ar- 
rangement. Twenty-seven lodging-houses in all, and a large public 
hall, have been secured for school use. A room, 83 feet by 20 feet, 
is being put up of rough shingle behind the hotel, in order to hold 
the whole school when needed. The stables are turned into the 
school carpentry, the large coach-house shed into a gymnasium ; 
a lavatory, with thirty basins, is being roughly put up; and al- 
together the school has shaken into place and got its working 
machinery in most unexpectedly good order. A beach, 4 miles 
long, with splendid sands, stretches away in front of the hotel, with 



288 Edzvard TJiring 



plenty of pebbles, and the sea to throw them into. An aquarium 
will be started this week. An octopus, most liberal of its sepia, 
has been already caught. The beach is closed on the south by the 
hills, on the north by the river Dovey and the hills beyond it. 
These hills seem to form an amphitheatre behind, round a broad 
stretch of peat which Ues between them and the sea. The views 
are lovely, and the place is suggestive of shells and aquariums and 
sea-birds in front, and of botany and rambles in the rear, while 
Aberystwith, with a railway running to it, forms a good base of 
operations for the colony to shop in and fall back on. Cricket goes 
on on the sand in a bay, and an excellent held, unfortunately 4 miles 
off, but on the railway, has been secured for half-holiday practice 
and matches. Everybody, high and low alike, has given ready help 
and welcome. The Bishop of St David's, who owns some land near 
the hotel, has allowed the school to have what they want for cricket 
there, if practicable ; so Uppingham by the Sea can do something 
besides throwing stones into the water. One short week saw this 
all done. It was like shaking the alphabet in a bag, and bringing 
out the letters into words and sentences, such was the sense of abso- 
lute confusion turned into intelligent shape." ^ 

" There are many of the old resources at Borth, but, whatsoever 
pastime may flourish or languish transplanted to this strange soil, 
there are two sources of enjoyment unfailing here, unknown to the 
schoul in its Midland home — the mountains and the sea. The boys 
wander out from the hotel doors, swarming like bees round a bee- 
hive, down to the broad reach of shingle and sand. Tea is over, 
and all the school is flocking to enjoy the sunset and watch the 
rising tide. They are doing what boys always do on the sea-shore 
— dodging the waves, hurling pebbles at them as they come in, 
burrowing in the sand for shells, cracking stones in the vain hope 
of finding jewels inside, or poring over the wooden reefs that rise so 
strangely from the sand, as the tide is not yet up — the long-buried 
fragments, so says the legend, of the lost Lowland Hundred. Those 
clear colours in the west where the sun sets in the sea, the rippling 
light beneath the clouds, the scattered groups of figures moving in 
the twilight somewhat darkly, with a pleasant freshness of boyhood 
all round, form a scene not easily forgotten. The dusky headlands 
stand out to seaward, with a white gleaming of broken waves at 

^ Thring's own account in the Times newspaper quoted by Parkin, 
II. p. 49. 



Borth 289 

their feet ; and landward shadowy mountains beyond the purple still 
catch a little glory from the sun. The low talk of pensive strollers, 
the rattle of pebbles, the laughter of those who chase each other in 
merry vein, all mixed with the roar of the sea, and perchance some 
strains of music from the choir at practice thrown in, give sights and 
sounds that may make the school, if not unfaithful to Uppingham it 
has left, yet more than half-reconciled to the new land. 

" New, indeed, and strange enough it all is. The whole scene 
and circumstances, both in and out of doors, have to be re-adapted 
to the old familiar work in unfamiliar ways. A partial shaking 
down has been accomplished; and, as if to make the first week 
truly represent the old school life, the last football match of the 
season, a broken-off fragment of the Uppingham left behind, was 
played out on the Saturday half-holiday; and the champion cup of 
the year awarded to the winners. So the jerseys, white or red, met 
in their mimic war in the new land. Thus ended the first week, 
and its evening closed on a quiet scene of school routine; as if 
doubt, and risk, and turmoil, and confusion, and fear, weary head 
and weary hand, had not been known in the place. The wrestling 
match against time was over, and happy dreams came down on 
Uppingham by the Sea." ^ 

The stay at Borth, though occasioned by a misfortune, 
brought many compensations with it. It lasted more 
than a year, since Thring steadily refused to return until 
every precaution was taken against a recurrence of 
disease. It is true he had little or no help or sympathy 
from the Governors. But the whole dramatic incident 
tested the fidelity of his colleagues, and the confidence 
of the boys and their parents in the courage and wis- 
dom of the Head Master. It interfered very little with the 
course of instruction, and opened out new sources of 
interest and new fields of experience both to scholars 
and teachers. Moreover it added a new and picturesque 
chapter to the school's history — one of which Uppingham 
boys will long be proud. Every school is the richer for 
possessing great and interesting traditions, and the flight 

1 Parkin's Life, n. 50. 
U 



290 Edward TJiriiig 



for life to Uppingham by the Sea will always remain 
memorable in the school annals. Mr Skrine, one of 
Thring's most constant and loyal helpers, has told the 
story with a simplicity and a charm which leave nothing 
to be desired, and from it, it must here suffice to take 
one characteristic extract: — 

"We returned to Uppingham in May, 1877, fourteen months 
after our exodus. We came back to an Uppingham much changed, 
above ground as well as under. Distance had lent us endearment, 
and our re-entry was an ovation. The horses were unyoked from 
the coaches outside the town, and the freight of boys, hauled by the 
hands of townsmen up the street, under triumphal arches of greenerv, 
enscrolled with mottoes of welcome and union. An address of 
sympathy was presented to the head-master and his staff, in an 
historic scene now blazoned on the great window of the school-room 
under which it was enacted." ^ 

*' Salt and sand and rocking wave, ' 
Salt and sand and sky, 
All ye had to give, ye gave, 
But good bye, good bye. 
* * * * 

Grey old school house consecrate 

On thy hill afar; 
Chapel keeping solemn state — 
Home, we go, hurrah ! 
Hey the robin, the lark, and the green, green grass, 

And the ivy that clings to the wall; 
Hey the robin, the lark, and the green, green grass, 
And the oak and the ash-tree tall."^ 

His One characteristic distinguishing his language teach- 

/iJj'ffT^' ing from that of most of his contemporaries, was his 

insistence on the value of English Grammar as the basis 

of philology. While finding his highest ideal of training 



1 A Afemory of Echvard Thring, p. 618. 

2 Borth Lyrics. 



Teaching of English 291 

as distinguished from mere instruction, in a thorough 
grounding in Greek and Latin, he believed that the 
fundamental laws of human speech admitted of ample 
illustration in the study of our own vernacular, especially 
when treated analytically. So early as 1852 he published 
a Child's Gfajfima?; which is an excellent example of 
the inductive method applied to the elements of English. 
Instead of beginning with an array of vowels and con- 
sonants, and with detinitions of parts of speech, he takes 
first a simple sentence consisting of nothing but a subject 
and a predicate, helps the scholar to recognize them as 
the necessary elements in all sentences, and then pro- 
ceeds to add others, e.g. the preposition, 'case-link,' 
moods, tenses, inflections and amplifications, illustrating 
each by examples. He thought that the principles of all 
grammar should be first taught in connexion with our 
mother tongue, and should afterwards be shown, by con- 
stant comparison of idioms and constructions, to be 
illustrated in Latin and Greek. To many members of 
his staff accustomed to the traditional method of teaching 
the Latin grammar by way of synthesis, beginning with 
rules and definitions, Thring's notions seemed to be 
flat heresy, and were highly unwelcome. One of his best 
masters speaks contemptuously of his 'appalling system 
of analysis ' with its unfamiliar terminology. 

Yet, in the main, Thring was right. "Rules and 77^^ 
terms," he said, "which are not thoroughly understood ^'^'"^.^''y ^-^ 
in principle first, may seem to be knowledge but are 
barriers." What he called 'sentence anatomy' was in fact 
an elementary lesson in the philosophy of language, and 
once learned in the investigation and comparison of 
English sentences, was found to tell on Latin and Greek 
lessons in an unexpected way. English grammar to him 
meant "common sense applied to language." He saw 



292 Edward TJiring 



with more clearness than most contemporary teachers, 
the importance of a thorough study of the mother tongue, 
and he lamented the neglect into which that study had 
fallen in some of our public schools. In German and 
in French colleges and schools of the highest rank, 
discipline in the structure, history, and right use of the 
vernacular speech receives far more attention than in 
our own. The common assumption that the classically 
trained boy has learned English indirectly and inci- 
dentally, through the medium of his Latin and Greek 
studies, and need not attend much to English, per se, 
is not found to be verified by experience. It is not 
unfrequently observed that when youths educated in 
public schools offer themselves as candidates for admis- 
sion to the public service, their performances are marred 
by gaucherie, by bad spelling and writing, by false and 
confused metaphors, by colloquialisms and slang, and 
by that most offensive of all slang, the use of pretentious 
words and phrases, the exact meaning of which is only 
imperfectly understood. To whom ought we to look 
except to those who have had the advantage of a liberal 
education, to be the chief guardians of the purity of 
our native language, and exemplars of accuracy without 
pedantry and ease without slovenliness? Yet at present 
there is much to be desired, in this respect, even in 
schools and colleges of the highest standing. On this 
point Thring was wont to dwell with much emphasis. 
For example, in his address to the Education Society, of 
which he was President, he said : — 

" Make every child master of the one instrument by which all 
human life moves, — speech, the mother tongue. The moment 
grammar is dealt with as thought working into words, and using 
the word-creations it gives birth to and making them live, insteod 
of as a kind of strait-waistcoat to pinch thought into shape, a nov 



Every boy good for something 293 

world is opened. If grammar is only thought taking shape, gram- 
mar is already in the mind, waiting to be called out. And it can 
be called out without any book work by a good teacher. A class 
can be made to frame its own rules by a little questioning." 

He was fastidious about the perfection of style in all 
translations into English; but although his methods did 
not succeed in teaching to write the very best Latin and 
Greek prose or verse such as a classical examiner desires, 
"they did teach us," as one of his best pupils acknow- 
ledged, "how to exert our minds in attempting it." To 
English composition practised /^n'/^j'j'// with compo- 
sition in an ancient language he assigned an unusually 
high place in his curriculum. 

Another marked characteristic of Thring was his belief Every boy 

that "every boy is good for something." "There is no-^ ^7/' 
J J ^ o sofjiet/nng. 

such thing in the world," he used to say, "as a good-for- 
nothing boy." 

" There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distil it out." 

and the way to 'distil it out' was in his opinion to 
discover as many chances as possible of doing right and 
to put them in the way of each scholar, for his voluntary 
choice. He had, it was said, a power of finding where 
the spark of fire lay hid in the coarsest human clay. 
He had in fact the prime requisite of a schoolmaster — 
the faith that even in the least promising and least inter- 
esting scholar, there was a power for good which ought 
to find exercise, and which it was the business of the 
teacher to discover.^ Hence large freedom for special 
aptitudes and tastes were offered to boys both in work 
and in play. As to school work, the staple of instruction 
in the humanities occupied the morning, beginning at 7 
and ending at 12; but for the rest of the day provision 

1 See ante, p. 109. 



294 



Edward TJiring 



employ- 
7nent, 



was made for mathematics, for drawing, for chemistry, 
for French and German, for physical science or for music; 
and among these, options were freely permitted. No 
attempt was made to fix the choice, and no one was 
expected to care for all these subjects; but every one 
was expected to care about something. 
Variety of Herein, I think Thring laid hold of a sound principle, 
and established a precedent which might well be more 
generally followed. A modern teacher is apt to be 
distracted by the importunate claims of new subjects for 
recognition as part of the ordinary school course. He 
fears to overweight his time-table and his curriculum. 
He rightly desires to give fair scope to the abilities of 
scholars who have different aptitudes and who are looking 
forward to different destinations. But he also sees the 
danger of wasting his resources, and sacrificing the unity 
of his school by encouraging too much and too early 
specialization. At Uppingham an attempt was made to 
solve the difficulty by adopting this rule : — Adhere reso- 
lutely, and for all scholars alike, to the one course of 
formative studies, which experience has shown to be the 
best for the general development of the intellectual 
character. Devote the best part of every day to these 
studies. But provide what Americans call 'elective 
studies ' and occupations to meet the special wants of 
individual pupils. In no other way can you hope to 
do justice to varied personal gifts, and to give every 
boy a chance of developing what is best in him. 

The same principle applies to games and recreations. 
There are some public schools in which a single game — 
such as football — is the favourite sport, and every boy 
who does not happen to like the game is set down as a 
craven or a milksop. This is often very unjust to 
scholars, who are not deficient in energy or manliness. 



and of 
games. 



The Fine Arts 295 



but to whom other forms of activity are more attractive. 
The school should therefore provide alternative recrea- 
tions, and when it has done so, the master has a right to 
assume that the boy who cares for none of them is 
probably a loafer whose habits need to be corrected. 
At Uppingham, which under Thring was the first public 
school in England to start a gymnasium, games were so 
organized as to suit all the boys and not only the heroes 
of the cricket or the football field. There was the 
carpenter's shop, the laboratory, the garden, an aviary, 
the field naturalists' club, and liberty to wander at will 
over the Rutland hills and pastures. There was little or 
no wrong doing. Rules were few, and there were many 
things to be done more amusing than breaking them. 

Thus there was in his mind a clear division of the 
time of a scholar into main working time and leisure 
time; or rather into regular scholarly lessons on the one 
hand, and sub-industries and non-compulsory recreation 
on the other. Underlying this arrangement was the 
belief that in the long run the pursuits of leisure often 
affect the character most. But all this presupposed a 
knowledge of the idiosyncrasies and the peculiar charac- 
teristics of every boy. And it was because such know- 
ledge was not attainable in a large school, that as we 
have seen he firmly resisted all temptations to increase 
the numbers, although such increase was much desired 
by his colleagues, and would manifestly have been con- 
venient on financial grounds. 

It is notable also that Thring attached high value to En- 
the formative and refining influence of the fine arts. ^°"l"f^r 
Personally he was deficient in the musical faculty, but he music and 
believed that music had been unduly neglected in public ^^^^^/"^ 
school education, and that the pursuit of it would have 
the effect of interesting boys who had no strong Intel- 



296 Edward T living 



lectual interests. From the first Mr Parkin tells us he 
determined that the music given to the boys should be 
of the best. By the offer of liberal salaries he was 
enabled to secure men of a high stamp. "We want," 
said he, "not only a first-rate musician who has made 
music his profession and is a master in it, but a man of 
personal power and go, who can inspirit the boys and 
breathe some enthusiasm into them." One of his most 
accomplished helpers in this work, Herr David, has 
thus described the working of this notable and novel 
experiment : ^ — 

*' Fifty years ago music had no place whatever in the curriculum 
of the great English schools, and it may be boldly asserted that 
Thring was the first of head-masters who fully recognized the value 
of the subject, and who assigned to it a not unimportant place in 
his scheme of education. It is true, an organist, who also gave 
some private lessons, was generally attached to school chapels, and 
choirs were connected with the colleges of Eton and Winchester. 
But they were professional and salaried choirs, and no gentleman's 
son ever thought of joining them. It is also true that school con- 
certs were not quite unknown, but they were merely * got up ' for 
the annual festivities — they had no connexion with the work of 
the school — and the programmes usually consisted of music of the 
lightest descriptions — songs, airs, glees, — now and then, perhaps, 
an oratorio chorus. The fact was, in those days, music was gen- 
erally looked upon as an agreeable accomplishment for young ladies ; 
and as a rule an English boy would as little think of singing or play- 
ing as he would of working embroidery or knitting stockings. To 
do so was considered rather unmanly. 
, " That Thring, himself quite unmusical, should have been the 
first to introduce music into such schools is certainly very remark- 
able. Like every great innovator, he was in this point, as in many 
others, in advance of his time. That he should have recognized the 
power of music — the perceptive organ for which, a musical ear, 
nature had absolutely denied him — is certainly a wonderful testi- 
mony to the man's intuitive judgment. But the deficiency caused 
— _ « ■ — — - — 

1 Parkin's Life of E. Thring, chapter X. 



Music 297 

by the absence of a musical ear was with him to some extent 
balanced by the extreme sensitiveness of his organization, and by 
that power of human sympathy which pervaded everything he did 
and said and wrote. Although he would, as a rule, candidly con- 
fess his inability to make anything of, or derive any enjoyment from 
music, yet on some rare occasions he would be deeply impressed, 
and then invariably by something really great and striking. No- 
body who saw his face light up through a spirited chorus like the 
* Hallelujah ' from the Messiah, or ' Rise up, arise ' from St Paul, 
could doubt that he was deeply impressed. Certainly the under- 
lying words assisted him in such instances to grasp something of the 
music, and the manifest enthusiasm of the performers also touched 
him. 

" The means by which he gave to music a prominent place in 
his school were simple enough. In the first place, he made the 
attendance on singing classes and music lessons compulsory, and 
subject to the same discipline as any regular school subject. But, 
above all, he gave to his music masters his full personal support and 
sympathy. He would frequently attend the choir rehearsals, and 
plainly manifest at all times his interest in the musical work done in 
the school. He especially gave his music masters a completely free 
hand in the choice of methods and the selection of works to be 
studied and performed. He knew how true it is that ' for the 
young the best is just good enough.' As he himself, being quite 
unmusical, could not judge, he wisely left the management in the 
hands of those he had reason to believe could judge. He would 
never listen to outside suggestions and complaints. In early days 
the cry for more ' popular ' and less * classic ' music was not un- 
frequently raised even within school circles. But, like all men 
who are really masters of their craft, he had a strong distrust t f 
dilettantism, and in the case of music would not allow it to meddle 
with the work of the professional musician. The results of this 
system soon became apparent. Music — good, serious music — be- 
came a prominent feature of Uppingham, more so than of any other 
public school in England, and it may confidently be asserted that 
the example of Uppingham in this respect has largely been followed 
elsewhere. Men like the late Sterndale Bennett, Joachim, and 
Villiers Stanford became warmly interested in Uppingham music, 
and by their frequent visits to the school, and actual participation 
in school concerts, gave an invaluable stimulus to the subject." 



298 Edivard Thring 



The In like manner and for similar reasons Thring at- 

decoration 



if the Cached great importance to the artistic decoration of the 
school- school-room and the chapel, and he made ample pro- 
''ooin. vision for the study of drawing and design. The various 
class-rooms were adorned with pictures, photographs, and 
models; the studio with portraits of various artists; the 
classical room, with pictures of Athens and of Rome and 
illustrations of Greek and Roman art; another room with 
portraits of eminent historians and representations of 
memorable historic scenes. There was a twofold pur- 
pose in this. To surround the scholar in his daily life 
with graceful ornament, and with examples of artistic 
colour and design is to furnish a silent yet not ineffective 
discipline to the tastes; and to help a boy all through his 
life to detect ugliness and vulgarity and to rebel against 
Honour ^^ them. But a still stronger reason in Thring's mind was 

lessons. 

that he was doing 'honour to lessons,' by surrounding 
them with as many dignified and beautiful accessories as 
possible.^ This is a point of view too often overlooked. 
Happily even in our best elementary schools — particularly 
in some of those under the London School Board — much 
has been done by means of picture decoration to serve 
as an unconscious lesson in good taste; but it must ever 
be remembered to Thring's honour that he was the first 
head-master of a great public school to perceive tlie 
importance of pictorial associations calculated to touch 
the imagination of the scholar, and to give him a store of 
pleasant memories for the enrichment of his after life. 
Thritig's Thring's views on the philosophy and practice of 

education are set forth with much fulness in his books, 
which though they do not profess to be text-books or 

^ Lord Carnarvon said on Founder's day, " Since the days of the 
painted porch in Athens, I doubt whetlier training has ever been 
installed more lovingly or more truly, or in a worthier home," 



Thrino;s ivritings 299 



pedagogic manuals of rules and formulae, have proved 
eminently inspiring and practical to English-speaking 
teachers at home and in America. He wrote, in fact, 
on no other subjects than those which were closely con- 
nected with his own profession; and he will deserve to 
be remembered rather as a man of action, and as one 
who concentrated his whole force upon the practical 
problems of school life, than as a contributor to general 
literature. Yet his books are entitled to a permanent 
place in all educational libraries. The earliest was 
written under the pseudonym of Benjamin Place and was 
called Thoughts on Life Science, a work dealing generally 
with the relation of Christian faith to knowledge and to 
human progress. His other books. Education and School, 
and The Theory and Practice of Teaching, and a posthu- 
mous volume of miscellaneous Addresses delivered to 
various bodies of teachers, represent his later convictions 
on educational science. He cannot be credited in a high 
degree with the faculty of humour, but he had a very 
nimble fancy, and in his books and in his teaching he 
constantly employs metaphor to an extent which reminds 
one of Sir Hudibras, who 

" could not ope 
His mouth, but out there flew a trope," 

and his peculiar genius thus betrayed him often into the His 
use of paradox and exaggeration. But there was always 
a serious meaning in what he wrote. As I have else- 
where said,i " All his writings are characterized by a deep 
sense of the moral and religious purpose which should 
be served in education, by fine enthusiasm, by intuitive 
insight into child nature, by happy and pregnant aphor- 
isms, and by an active and often grotesque fancy, which, 

1 In the Dictionary of National Biography. 



300 Edward Thring 

though it illuminated his talk and his books, led him to 
indulge in analogies occasionally remote and, it must be 
owned, somewhat tantalizing. There are chapters e.g. in 
his book on The Theory and Practice of Teachings headed 
'The school-boys' briar patch,' 'Legs not wings,' 'The 
blurred Chromograph, ' 'Run the goose down,' which 
require the reader to be attuned to the writer's peculiar 
form of thought before their meaning becomes fully 
intelligible." It is right to add that his books are also 
characterized by a melancholy impression that he was 
fighting for a lost cause; that the liberty which he valued 
so much for himself was in danger from the interference 
of statesmen and examiners, and of an imperfectly in- 
structed public. In a private letter thanking me in 1884 
for a review which I had written of his book he says, 
" Pessimist as I am as regards England in this matter, 
and believing that the cause is already lost, and sadly 
familiar with the facts which make me believe this, I 
marvel now how I was induced to break my resolution of 
holding my tongue, and when I did so, it was with a 
heavy consciousness of useless effort for the present. 
* * I have however a foothold in America, Canada, and 
Hungary which cheers me. I will not thank you, because 
the help given to me was the outcome of a common 
cause; but I will thank and trust the common cause 
which has brought me so valued a recognition." 
Character- Here are a few characteristic sentences by which one 
^^^^^^, may learn to judge of the fertility of his illustration, and 

the strength of his convictions : — 

" I feel more and more disinclined to have anything to do with 
public life and all its noisy clatter, where everyone is playiiJg his 
own tune, and barrel-organs which can go with a handle are worth 
much more than violins which want a soul." 

Diary, Dec. 14, 1874. 



Characteristic extracts 301 

" Education is not bookworm work, but the giving the subtle 
power of observation the faculty of seeing, the eye and mind to 
catch hidden truths and new creative genius. If the cursed rule- 
mongering and technical terms could be banished to limbo, some- 
thing might be done. Three parts of teaching and learning in 
England is the hiding common sense and disguising ignorance under 
phrases." Diary. 

*' Knowledge worship and the lust of the head are deadly enemies 

to the loving eye and the humble spirit." 

Address to the Teachers' Guild. 
" Here I spend my days leading jackasses up Parnassus." 
"The whole tendency of the present day is to glorify quick 

returns, various knowledge — cram, in fact, and to depreciate thought 

training and strength." 

Education and School. 

"The most pitiful sight in the world is the slow, good boy, 
laboriously kneading himself into stupidity because he is good." 

Address to Teachers of Minnesota. 

"All my life long the good and evil of the Ilminster School has 

been upon me. It is even now one of my strongest impressions, 

with its misery, the misery of a clipped hedge with every clip 

through flesh and blood, and fresh young feelings, its snatches of 

joy, its painful but honest work — grim, but grimly in earnest, and 

its prison morality of discipline. The most lasting lesson of my 

life was the failure of suspicion and severity to get inside the boy 

world, however much it troubled our outsides. * * * It was my 

memories of that school and its severities which made me long to 

" try if I could not make the life of small boys at school happier and 

brighter." 

Parkm, Vol. i. p. 13. 

"The great point of internal discipline is to make every boy 
interested in the conduct of his fellows. They are their own law- 
givers, inasmuch as the more they shew themselves worthy of trust, 

the more rules are relaxed." 

Notes, 1858. 

" To-day I signed the contract for the chapel. * * Every stone 

here is laid in sorrow and fear, and mortared with sweat and blood 

and perplexity." 

Diary, May 17, 1862. 



302 Edzvard TJiring 



" I have observed lately no unnatural desire here to claim a 
position among English schools. Now you cannot claim it. It must 
come. Indeed we are very far from wishing that the school should 
come forward on the false ground of mere increase of numbers, which 
may be an increase of shame^ for a mob is not an army, or of mere 
identity with other schools, which is not what has made us what we 
are. Yet be sure there are the means here of being great. Have 
you so soon forgotten the motto in your head room : 

' Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.' ^ 

Yes, power must come, and there are two ways for it to come. 
Most of all, and first, the winning a character for truth and honour. 
Most of all that no lie in word or deed, no shams, no underhand 
deceits, shall harbour here — nothing that will not bear the light. 
Let this be the school character, as I trust it is, and fear not. The 
school is great." 

Address to Boys on the Opening of the New School Building, 
1863. 
" I don't want the cricket to get too powerful here, and to be 
worshipped and made the end of life for a considerable section of 
the school" Diary, May, 1872. 

" The distinction between mechanic work and life work, and 

between force and true power, forms the basis of educational 

science." 

Theory and Practice of Teaching, p. 32. 

" The limits are narrow indeed within which the whip is master, 
whether it be the whip of breadwinning and the hard necessity of 
working to live, or of intellect and the pride of strength." 

Ibid. 

" If training is indeed the object, no useless punishment should 
be inflicted, that is, no punishment which shall not have something 
in it beneficial in the doing. * * * The common school punishment 
of setting a boy to write out and translate his lessons signally fails. 
It is not beneficial, but the contrary. It is wearisome without 
exercising the mind. This is not good. It injures the handwriting; 
this is not good. It encourages slovenly habits; this is not good. 
It contains no corrective element, except that it is a disagreeable 



1 Tennyson's QLnone. 



Extracts contimted 303 

way of spending time ; but time is very precious; a chief part of 
training is teaching a right use of time, wasting time therefore is not 
satisfactory in a good school. The one advantage it possesses, and 
that is not unimportant, is this, it gives no trouble to masters, and 
does not take up their time." 

Education and School, p. 241. 

"Genius is the power of getting inside a subject by loving it, 
not a power of flying above it." 

Theory and Practice, p. 234. 

"Notes taken in school should be very sparingly allowed; a 
note-book is not attention, neither is it a boy's mind." 

p. 227. 

" If one afternoon a week is set apart for a lecture to the whole 
school on any subject whatever worth lecturing on, much general 
knowledge of common but unknown things can be given. Grand 
battues of carnivorous stags, and other such game, take place, 
interest is excited, and freshness poured into the school routine. 
Not the least valuable part of this plan is the advantage it is to the 
masters themselves. Has any one of them a hobby, a favourite 
pursuit, he is able to bring it out and air it before an appreciative 
audience, to exhibit himself as a human being with human sympathies, 
and not merely a mummified paste of Greek and Latin verbs." 

p. 207. 

" Attention rises or falls in the barometer in proportion to the 
master's ability. Inattention is a master's sin. It is a weed which 
above all others grows on badly farmed ground." 

p. 176. 

" All speak a language. Everything in the world passes through 
language. Clear and widen the language-pipe first. 

" A teacher is a combination of heart, head, artistic training and 
favouring circumstances. Like all other high arts, there must be 
free play or there can be no teaching. 

" Any fool with knowledge can pour it into a clever boy, but it 
needs a skilled teacher to teach a stupid one. Break down the 
knowledge idol. Smash up the idolatry of knowledge." 

Address to Teachers of Minnesota. 

" Life is what has to be dealt with, not lessons, or lessons only 
so far as they inspirit life, enrich it, and give it new powers." 

Address to Education Society. 



304 Edward TJiring 



" The best way to form the * pictorial mind ' I believe to be to 
set a boy before a picture or a scene; tell him to look at it, to fix it 
in his mind; and then turn him round, make him shut his eyes, 
and describe what he sees in his mind." 

A Workman's Hints on Teaching Work. 

His It may well be doubted whether the affectionate zeal 

of his biographer Mr Parkin has not unintentionally 
done some disservice to Thring's permanent repute, by 
placing on record so large a number of extracts from his 
personal diary. They leave on the reader's mind a 
strong impression, that the keeping of a diary except as 
a record of memorable facts and incidents is often a 
grave mistake, especially when, as in Thring's case, the 
result is given to the world. Mr Parkin's extracts reveal 
with pitiless candour the weaker and less noble side of 
his hero's strong and original character — his irritability, 
his impatience of control, his frequent unwillingness 
to do justice to the views of other people, and his 
tendency to exaggerate the importance of petty daily 
incidents in the school life, and to be needlessly worried 
by them. Many of these details are given with somewhat 
disproportionate fulness in the biography, and are ill- 
calculated to convey a true picture of Thring's character 
as a whole. 
The Head- Although all the activity and ambition of his life were 
Confer- ^^ "'■ ^^^^ ^^i^ concentrated on the school, there were 
ence. two or three external interests which excited much of 

his enthusiasm, and to which he devoted much thought. 
One of these was the "Head-Masters' Conference," a 
thing unknown before 1869, but now well understood to 
be an institution of great value, and a factor of much 
importance in the history of English Schools. Thring 
had thought much about the need of more solidarity in 
the teacher's profession; and the passing of the Endowed 



Head-Mistresses' Conference 305 

Schools Act in that year, while it made him feel great 
distrust of Government and a somewhat exaggerated 
alarm at the prospect of its action, rendered him more 
than ever sensible of the need for united counsel on the 
part of his brethren, and of the advantages which might 
accrue from the establishment of a sense of corporate 
union, and from deliberation on the methods of instruction 
and on the interests of the profession generally. Accord- 
ingly it was at his instance and on his invitation that the 
first meeting was held at Uppingham in December 1869. 
In his speech he laid down the broad lines and scope of the 
Conference, dwelt on the pleasantness and profitableness 
of brotherly intercourse, and proposed that the Confer- 
ence should become an annual institution. It need not 
surprise us that among so conservative a body and one 
whose members were so little accustomed to collective 
action, many Head-Masters showed much misgiving and 
reluctance, and that only thirteen of them attended the 
first meeting: successive gatherings in later years at 
Winchester, Dulwich, at Eton, Harrow, and Marlborough 
were attended by increasing numbers, and as the business 
became systematized, the usefulness and the public 
influence of the body increased year by year. One of 
his most distinguished colleagues in a letter to me says, 
" We always regarded Thring as our founder, and for 
years he took a leading part in its meetings and on its 
committees; but being both autocratic and eccentric, 
he was not an ideal committee man; but then what 
genius is? Thring had in him, though much alloyed, an 
element of genius; and I love and respect his memory." 

It was his conviction of the value of such opportuni- Ilead- 
tiesof mutual intercourse, and his experience of their prac-^ " > esses. 
tical success, that led him to welcome with keen interest 
the establishment among the Head-Mistresses of Girls' 



3o6 Edward TJiring 



Public Schools of a similar association; and with charac- 
teristic chivalry he invited the whole party of ladies to 
hold their meeting at Uppingham in June 1887. On that 
occasion he entertained the late Miss Buss and the prin- 
cipal members of the Conference, and delivered to them 
a stirring and suggestive address. He had always set a 
high value on the services of women in education, and 
he rejoiced much at the many new openings for their 
usefulness and intellectual influence, which have charac- 
terized the present age. In the address which he had 
written to the American teachers assembled at Minnesota 
he had congratulated them on the large and increasing 
number of wotnen engaged in the work of higher education 
in the States, and had said : — 

Women as " I hold that nature to be the highest which in a true way has 
teachers. got the farthest in recognizing woman's mission and works, whose 
simple power it is to undermine and discredit force, to make work 
lovely, to present a living example of the highest influence depend- 
ing on gentleness and helpfulness." 

From his address to the lady-teachers at Uppingham, 
it must sufifice if I take two or three sentences. 

" If spiritual influence is the primary power which sets movement 
going, the sovereign power of woman in the world is manifest." 

" In many fields of refined feeling and delicate power in art and 
literature, women will excel men when fair play is given them." 

" Leave men to do the coarser work. Be content with the 
queenly power that moulds and rules." 

Settlement Uppingham was the first of the great public schools 
^//^'J''^/ to establish a school mission or settlement in one of the 
poorest parts of London, and to invoke in its aid the 
support of the boys as well as the masters. Thring 
began the work at the North Woolwich settlement in 
1869, and the precedent was followed seven years later 
by Winchester and afterwards by most of the larger public 



The prize system 307 



schools. He saw in the working of the experiment a means 
of calling out in the boys more sympathy and a higher 
stnse of responsibility towards the poor and others whose 
intellectual advantages were small; and it interested him 
keenly on other grounds: "The more I think of North 
Woolwich the more my heart rests on it. There is such 
a taste of life in it." 

The same desire to interest the boys in philanthropic 
work led him to form the 'Uppingham School Society' 
^to encourage the efforts after self-improvement made 
by persons engaged in the different industries of the 
little town. There were classes, lectures, a cookery 
school, and other popular devices for interesting the 
inhabitants. The Society was managed and sustained 
mainly by old boys; and it has, during many years, proved 
of much service to the town, and furnished a useful link 
of association between the school and the residents. 

Thus in more ways than one Thring may be regarded 
as the pioneer of some of the most important educational 
improvements of our time in regard to methods and 
aims of teaching, to the enlargement of the curriculum 
of instruction, to the opportunities for the employ- 
ment of special faculties, and to the discovery of new 
relations between the work of a school and that of home 
and professional life. At a time when the worship of The prize 
mere cleverness seemed to him unduly in the ascendant, ^y^^^"^- 
when it was part of the policy of some great schools to 
compete with each other for the possession of boys 
likely to distinguish themselves, and by means of severe 
entrance examinations to discourage the admission of 
others; and when the usefulness and repute of a school 
were apt to be estimated by the number of prizes, exhibi- 
tions, and academic successes it could win, Thring reso- 
lutely vindicated the rights of the rank and file of ordinary 



3o8 Edivard TJiring 

scholars. He thought it a higher triumph to maintain 
a good average of capable and industrious, even though 
undistinguished, boys, than to win a few prizes which 
would help Uppingham to achieve notoriety, and to 
outstrip other schools in competitive examinations. 
"Fasten your attention," he would say to his assistants, 
"on the stupidest and least promising learners, and 
measure your success by what you can do with them." 
This was not a view calculated to satisfy the ambition of 
all his colleagues; and there is evidence in his diary of 
occasional friction between him and them in consequence. 
A masterful, pugnacious, and withal very sensitive 
man, he had an almost morbid habit of introspection, and 
a tendency to chafe under small vexations and rebuffs. 
Disappointments came to him from injudicious parents 
and from unsympathetic trustees, as well as from col- 
leagues; but the worst disappointment of all was the 
failure of any boy to sustain either in the University or 
in after-life, the hope and promise of his early youth. 
Sometimes in playful sadness he would compare himself 
to Aaron, who in giving account of the treasure that had 
been placed in his hands, was fain to own, "I cast the 
gold into the fire, and thei^e came out this calf. " Rut when 
the details of his failures and successes fall into their 
true perspective, the fact will remain that his thirty-two 
years of work at Uppingham left an enduring mark on 
the history of education in the nineteenth century; and 
that, except Arnold, there was no one of his contempo- 
raries who did more to raise the popular ideal of what a 
great boarding-school ought to be and to do; and to 
illustrate in his own person the spiritual and moral 
relation which ought to subsist between teacher and 
taught. The last time in which his voice was heard in 
the school chapel which he loved so well, was on the 



Mr Skrines book 309 

Sunday before his death, when it fell to him to read the 
concluding verse of the psahns for the evening service, — 
a passage deeply significant of the work and the secret 
meaning of his whole life, '''' So he fed them ivith a 
faithful and a true hearty and ruled them prudently ivith 
all his poiver.''^ 

I ought not to conclude without counselling all my 
hearers to read, if they can obtain it, Mr Skrine's book, A 
Memory of Edward Thring. It has never I think received 
either from teachers or from literary critics the recognition 
it deserves. It is animated by the true spirit of disciple- 
ship; and amore graceful, tender, and touching tribute has 
seldom been paid by a loving pupil and colleague to a lost 
leader and friend. The book is distinguished not only 
by literary charm, but by delicate insight and sympathy, 
and is entitled to a high and permanent place in the 
bibliography of education. From it the reader will gain 
even more vividly than from Mr Parkin's fuller and more 
ofificial biography, a picture of the inner life of Thring 
and of the meaning and purpose of his whole career. 



LECTURE X 

THE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION MOVEMENT, 
AND ITS RELATION TO SCHOOLS^ 

The University Extension Scheme. Its missionary character. Its 
possible influence on Schools and on Training Colleges. Ele- 
mentary teachers. Some special disadvantages in their life. 
Their extra-professional interests. Certificate hunting. The 
study of history. English literature. Economic science. The 
study of nature and art. Teachers' societies. 

The 'Uni- T HAVE been asked to say a few words concerning the 

verstiy special bearing of University Extension work on the 

Extension ' ^ -^ . 

Schefne. interests of teachers, and on the expansion and improve- 
ment of public education. But I desire first of all to 
renew the expression of my strong sympathy with the 
work which, under the name of "University Extension," 
the ancient foundations of Oxford and Cambridge have 
of late years taken in hand. I know of no more honour- 
able or cheering fact in our educational history than 
that these two great Universities, with the traditions of a 
thousand years behind them, and with many inducements 
to restrict themselves to the duty of promoting learning 
by time-honoured academic methods, should nevertheless 
have made efforts to extend their influence, and to en- 
courage the appetite for knowledge among persons who 

1 Address delivered at Oxford at the Summer Meeting of Uni- 
versity Extension Students. August, 1899. 

310 



Its missionary character 311 

live remote from the great seats of learning, and who are 
never likely to become graduates, or members of the 
University in any technical sense. I hope nothing will 
happen to hinder or discourage this work, or to cause 
the University authorities to lose faith in the soundness 
of the principles on which the whole of this Extension 
movement is based. 

Pedants may tell you that the people who attend Fis rnis- 
your provincial lectures are not in the strict sense of the ^'^'^"'y 

J ^ cliaracter 

word "University" students, and that the University is 
descending from its true dignity when it concerns itself 
with the reading and with the more or less feeble efforts 
after self-improvement of non-residents who never come 
in any real sense within the sphere of academic influence. 
But we need not listen to such objections. Every 
institution in the world which has true vitality in it, 
possesses the power ainpliare jmisdictionem and to find 
new opportunities of usefulness and expansion. And the 
true test of its vitality is to be found in its readiness to 
welcome such opportunities, and to make the most of 
them. In hundreds of places remote from the great 
centres of learning, the advent of your lecturer and the 
organization of a series of lectures are memorable and 
stimulating events. They set people reading, thinking, 
and enquiring. They promote a higher tone of conver- 
sation, and they lift up the standard of intellectual life in 
the local society. They help your students to take a 
new and fresh outlook into the world of nature and of 
books; and they furnish guidance as to the choice of 
reading and the right methods of study. Whether this 
sort of missionary effort is, in the historical and conven- 
tional sense, "University" work or not, seems to me an 
idle question. It is good, honest work; it is closely akin 
to the true intent and purpose of a great University; it 



312 University Extension 



does not interfere in any way with the cultivation of 
learning by the traditional academic methods and within 
its ancient and venerable halls; and it opens out to the 
Scholars and Fellows who have enjoyed the blessings of 
residence here new possibilities of rendering public ser- 
vice, and of exercising influence on the life of the nation. 
Sometimes, too, the effect of a successful course of 
lectures is to create an appetite for systematic study, to 
bring recruits into actual touch with the University, and 
otherwise to establish permanent centres in which, under 
helpful supervision and sympathy from headquarters, 
studies of a genuine University type may be regularly 
pursued. At Exeter, Reading, and Colchester valuable 
experiments in this direction have already been made, 
with high promise of future stability and usefulness. By 
all means, let the University encourage such experiments. 
But do not let her disdain the humbler work which is 
being done among students who are not qualified to pass 
examinations, and whose studies cannot be said to con- 
form to any approved academic type. If you succeed in 
inspiring such students with new motives for intellectual 
exertion, and in awakening in them not only an increased 
interest in high and worthy objects of thought, but also 
a consciousness of increased power to fashion and regu- 
late their own minds, the University Extension movement 
amply vindicates its own existence and, in fact, needs no 
higher vindication. The work originally undertaken and 
carried on for a time with signal success by the Society 
for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and by the 
kindred agency of Dr Birkbeck and the Mechanics' 
Institutes, will at all times be indispensable, though it 
may be carried on under different names. The Uni- 
versity Extension Scheme is the legitimate modern 
successor to those institutions, and it possesses this 



Its iiifluencc on Schools 313 

great advantage over them, that its lectures are not single, 
but i?i courses, that its teachers have the power to deal 
continuously with a great subject, and to treat it ex- 
haustively, and thus to help real students who are not 
content to have their intellectual appetites stimulated 
by occasional lectures on new and unrelated topics. 

But I am to-day especially concerned with the \w- Its possible 
fluence which the whole scheme may exert on public ^"T^f'^'^'^' 

^ ^ on schools. 

education generally, and with the way in which it may fit 
in and become incorporated with the best work of our 
Schools. It is essential that the 'Extension' movement 
should not be regarded by any of us as a thing apart. 
It should become duly co-ordinated with other agencies, 
and take its place as a permanent and integral factor in 
the system of national education. 

We may admit that for scholars while they remain in 
great public classical schools, or higher proprietary and 
intermediate schools, the popular lectures of the Univer- 
sity Extension Society are well-nigh superfluous. Such 
pupils are in daily contact with scholarly teachers, who are 
quite capable of indulging in an occasional 'excursus ' 
into the region lying all round the prescribed routine of 
school studies, and who do not need the aid of the 
University Extension Lecturer to interest their scholars 
in enquiries beyond those necessarily connected with 
their "form" work. But even here, the best of our 
teachers are discovering that the occasional services of 
outside lecturers on some subject of public interest, on the 
results of foreign travel and enterprise, or on the history 
of art, not only afford a welcome relief to severer studies, 
but have a distinctly favourable effect on the general life 
of the school, by giving the boys something fresh to talk 
about, and by inspiring some of them to seek distinction 
in new fields of action and of thought. 



314 University Extension 



For the elder pupils in schools of a lower and inter- 
mediate character, and for the pupil-teachers and assist- 
ants in our public elementary schools, there is work to be 
done which it is specially fitting for the University 
Extension lecturers to undertake. They should place 
themselves in communication with all the high schools 
and local colleges, and learn from their authorized 
teachers what is the kind of help which would be most 
appreciated and would act most beneficially on the 
general interests and life of the students. 

Training My own experience as Inspector of Trainins; Colleges 
Colleges. ,;,,,., . 

has often led me, while expressmg a hearty appreciation 

of the many merits of those institutions, to* deplore what 
I have called a certain ^closeness in their intellectual 
atmosphere' — a too exclusive absorption of the students' 
time and thoughts in the prescribed syllabus of exami- 
nation. This narrowness of view is characteristic of 
professional seminaries generally; and it can be partially 
corrected by requiring that some part of the learners' 
training should be obtained in common with other 
students who are not intending to be teachers. In this 
respect, a course of University Extension lectures may 
render great service. Sometimes when it can be so 
arranged, such a course may well deal with a subject 
akin to that prescribed in the syllabus; but if this be 
done the treatment of the subject should be broad and 
philosophical, not directed to the purpose of passing an 
examination, but rather to enable the students to see 
the bearing of their studies on other than professional 
necessities or ideals. By thus supplementing the ordinary 
prelections of the College Professors, the University may 
often give freshness and much needed variety to the 
regular and specific normal training. 

But after all, it is to the trained teacher, after he or 



Elementary teacJiers 315 

she has obtained the needful professional diploma, and Element- 

is fairly occupied with school routine, that the 'Extension' ^'-^', 

-^ . teachers. 

movement is often most valuable. 

Owing to the special circumstances of my own ofificial 
experience, I feel peculiar interest in the teachers — both 
head-masters and mistresses and their assistants — of our 
public elementary schools. Except within the walls of 
their own school-rooms, they often live very sequestered 
lives. In country places they have few opportunities of 
intercourse with fellow teachers. Their social advantages 
are not great. They cannot, of course, find congenial 
friends and companions in the class to which their 
scholars belong, and from which many of them as pupil- 
teachers themselves have been selected. And they are 
not always received on a footing of equality into the 
circles in which men of the learned professions — clergy, 
doctors, and lawyers move freely and determine the 
tone and standard of the best social life. However we 
may deplore the exclusiveness which often dominates 
English society, we must accept it as a fact: and one 
result of it is that the trained and qualified elementary 
teacher, however well instructed and well mannered, 
occupies practically a rather uncertain and anomalous 
status, and finds himself both intellectually and socially 
in a position of isolation, which is not wholly favour- 
able to the development of his best qualities, or to the 
dignity and happiness of his life. 

There are other disadvantages incident to the career Some 
of elementary teachers. They have all passed through a ^pcf^^^f^^- 

■' y 1 o advantages 

prescribed course of study, which to many of them seems in their 
laborious. They have been repeatedly examined, and ^^^^' 
they have passed the examination for a Government 
certificate. That certificate cannot be truly said to 
represent a standard of knowledge equivalent to what is 



3i6 University Extension 

understood in other professions to be a liberal education. 
Yet it represents the irreducible minimum exacted by 
the Education Department, and when once acquired, it 
gives to the certificate holder a legal qualification to 
become the head teacher of any school under Govern- 
ment inspection. What wonder, therefore, if by many 
teachers this legal minimum is mistaken for the maxi- 
mum? It satisfies the Government. It satisfies school 
managers. There is for the average teacher no strong 
motive for further study or intellectual exertion. His 
daily duties make no pressing or very obvious demand 
on him for more knowledge than he possesses. The 
certificate examination has covered all the subjects he 
has to teach in the ordinary routine of school duty. He 
spends his days in the presence of his intellectual 
inferiors, of children who look upon him as a prodigy of 
erudition, and who know nothing of his limitations. It 
is a fine thing for anyone, in playing his part on the 
stage of life, to perform in the presence of an audience 
which habitually demands his best. But the schoolmaster 
works, for the most part, before an uncritical audience, 
which, so far from challenging his highest powers, and 
demanding his best, is often well content with his 
worst. 
Their I know many admirable and laborious teachers who 

extra-pro- ^^^ ^gj-y conscious of the depressing effect of these and 

fessional ■' i i • 

interests, the like conditions, and who are making strenuous efforts 
to improve those conditions, or at least to neutralize 
their narrowing influence. Many of the most ambitious 
seek for such scholarly help as is within their reach, 
and plan out for themselves a course of study which 
will enable them to pass the open examinations of the 
University of London, and in due time to attain a degree 
in art or science. These are very honourable efforts. 



Extra-professional ijiterests 317 

They imply diligence, self-restraint, self-conquest; they 
widen the range of the teacher's knowledge; they bring 
to him personally, and to the profession to which he 
belongs, higher public estimation, and they are unques- 
tionably useful as helps to promotion. But it is, after 
all, only a few exceptional teachers who are competent 
to undertake this enterprise, and are prepared to make 
the sacrifices needed to ensure success. For the rank 
and file of our elementary teachers this particular path of 
ambition is inaccessible. And it is for them that the 
University Extension agency is especially appropriate. 
Yet to them the prospect of more examinations is not 
attractive. They have been examined enough. At every 
stage of their career — as scholars in the standards, as 
pupil teachers, as Queen's scholars, as students in training 
colleges, and ultimately as candidates for certificates — 
they have been subjected to ofificial examination, and 
their success has been measured by their place in a class 
list or by the report of H. M. Inspector. It is inevitable 
that they should have come to regard all knowledge — 
whether their own or that of their scholars — as a market- 
able or at least as an examinable commodity; something 
to be enforced, measured, and appraised by an outside 
authority, rather than as an inner and precious possession 
for the enrichment of their own lives. I do not see how 
we can wholly escape from the action of the examination 
system, and I am certainly not one of those who would 
denounce examinations as wholly bad; but it is well that 
we should all recognize fairly the limitations to their 
usefulness, and the price we pay for whatever good we 
obtain from them. So, after all, that part of your own 
arrangement which contemplates the holding of an 
examination, and the award of a certificate at the end of 
a course of lectures, however valuable it may be as a 



3i8 University Extension 

means of giving definiteness to the aims of other students, 
is not the part which will most commend itself to the 
elementary teacher, nor the part which will prove most 
helpful to him. 
<Certificaie Certificate hunting is one of the most subtle snares of 
xuu tig. ^1^^ public teacher. He is tempted to say of all new 
knowledge that is presented to him, "What shall I gain 
by this? What value will be assigned to my certificate 
by school managers or other public authorities? How 
will this new knowledge pay, and help my promotion? " 
And the state of mind which suggests these questions is 
fatal to any true conception, not only of professional life, 
but of that higher and larger life which consisteth not 
in material advantages of any kind, but is made up of 
ideas, of intellectual hopes and aspirations, of the love 
of truth, and of the desire to give full scope to our best 
faculties. 

By all means, when the school master or school mis- 
tress becomes conscious of the need of further mental 
cultivation than is contemplated by merely ofificial re- 
quirements, and when he is disposed to satisfy this w^ant 
by joining a Latin, a French, or a Science Class, and 
reading under the guidance of one of your lecturers, 
with a view to the passing of an examination, and the 
attainment of a certificate, let him be welcomed, and let 
his ambition be encouraged. But I have in view mainly 
the average teacher, who is not prepared to make this 
kind of effort and who yet feels the need of some 
stimulus to exertion, and some enlargement of his intel- 
lectual interests. And for him the chief need is not 
always for regular study on the scholastic lines with 
which he is already so familiar, but for general mental 
culture, literary taste, and capacity for self-improvement. 
The technical studies which have been enforced upon 



History 3i9 

him, as conditions of becoming recognized as a qualified 
teacher, have done much for him. But they have in 
many cases failed to place him on a level with cultivated 
persons in other professions, or to qualify him to share 
freely and on equal terms in their talk and pursuits. 

Let me mention two or three of the topics which are 
often handled with conspicuous success by your Uni- 
versity Extension lecturers, and which are from this 
point of view specially valuable to teachers, because they 
have not been included in official programmes, and have 
very little to do with pedagogy. 

Of these one of the most important is history. Of The shtdy 
course, all our teachers have studied it, and have ac- ^-^ '^^'-^' 
quired a certain knowledge of its main outlines. But 
it has not, as a rule, been presented to them in its most 
attractive aspects. The history read up from text-books 
and student's manuals is not inspiring. It is not forma- 
tive and philosophical. It is knowledge of facts only, 
and appeals rather to the memory than to the imagi- 
nation, the reason, or the conscience. We must not 
complain of this. It could not be otherwise. The 
student who is to enter the higher region of thought 
which the philosophy of history occupies must first 
have obtained a substratum of dates and facts; must 
have had presented to him a carte dii pays, by means 
of which he may assign its right place to any new 
information he may be able to obtain. But this is only 
■ the beginning. President Eliot, of Harvard, says truly : 

" If any study is liberal and liberalizing, it is the study of history 
— the study of the passions, opinions, behefs, arts, laws, and institu- 
tions of different races or communities, and of the joys, sufferings, 
conflicts, and achievements of mankind. Philology and polite 
literature arrogate the title of 'humanities,' but what study can 
so justly claim that honourable title as the study which deals with 
the actual experience on this earth of social and progressive man? 



320 University Extension 

What kind of knowledge can be so useful to a legislator, ad- 
ministrator, journalist, publicist, philanthropist, or philosopher as 
a well-ordered knowledge of history? * * The study of our own 
annals in particular shows the young the springs of public honour 
and dishonour, sets before them the national failings, weaknesses, 
and sins; warns them against future dangers by exhibiting the 
losses and sufferings of the past, enshrines in their hearts the national 
heroes, and strengthens in them the precious love of country." ^ 

Now there are some among your Extension lecturers 
who have shown a real grasp of historical science in 
this its higher aspect, and who are competent to illumi- 
nate our annals by fresh thought and by large and sure 
generalizations. And this is precisely the kind of help 
which is most needed by teachers whose knowledge of 
history has been acquired mainly for examination pur- 
poses, and who are yet conscious of the need of some- 
thing more inspiring. If by your help, such teachers 
are led to take a stronger interest in the great and 
critical periods of history, and in the lives of our most 
famous statesmen, you will have done them a great 
permanent service, one which will re-act in many unex- 
pected ways on their school lessons, and give additional 
enjoyment and dignity to their own leisure. Good trans- 
lations of Herodotus and Thucydides and Tacitus exist, 
and, if instead of learning our own national story through 
compendiums, you are able to awaken the appetite for 
Bacon, for Hume, for Gibbon, for Froude, for Lecky, for 
Buckle, for Seeley, and for Pearson, so that their books 
shall be studied at first hand, and not in extracts, there 
will be an abiding result. 
English Similar considerations apply to the study of English 

f^^^.^^ Literature. There is no need for us to disparage the 

importance of the course of instruction through which, 

^ Eliot, Addresses on Educational Reform, p. 104. 



Literature 321 

in accordance with the syllabus of the Education Depart- 
ment, the certificated teacher has been required to pass. 
He has taken up Comus or Lear, has worked at it line 
by line, has hunted out all its historical allusions, has 
studied the etymology of its most difficult words, has 
read what the best critics have said about the drama, 
and the place which it occupies in literature, has para- 
phrased some of the more memorable passages, and 
analyzed them both grammatically and logically. All 
this has unquestionable utility, and I do not see how you 
can dispense with exercises of this kind, while the 
student is vt statu pupillari. But it is not necessarily 
the best — it is certainly not the only — way of generating 
in his mind an abiding, an affectionate interest in the 
great masters of literary expression, and in the best that 
has been written and thought in the world. This can 
only come when a great masterpiece is studied as a whole 
and not subjected to verbal and grammatical analysis, 
when the reader becomes penetrated with its spirit, and 
finds out for himself the motive and aim of the author, 
and the place the book holds in literature. 

Herein lies the need of personal contact with a 
scholarly mind, and the inspiration which can only come 
from the living voice of an effective lecturer. Thus a 
student may be helped to take a broad and comprehensive 
view of a great book; and to find his appetite whetted 
for the fuller enjoyment of it in his leisure. And the true 
test of the success of a lecture on literature is: Does it 
send the hearer home with a determination to make at 
first hand a fuller acquaintance with the poet or the phi- 
losopher concerned ? Does it make him dissatisfied with 
critical essays, with "beauties," with extracts, with re- 
views, and still more with "reviews of reviews" — in a 
word, with what clever people have said about a great 

Y 



322 Ujii versify Extension 

English classic, and so does it lead him to form his 
own judgment, and make his own extracts, or still better, 
his own criticism? It is only \vhen these conditions 
are fultilled that courses of lectures on literature can 
serve their highest purpose. But here is a boundless 
region of thought and suggestion and usefulness, which 
many of your lecturers have occupied with signal suc- 
cess, and into which the elementary teacher might be 
cordially invited. How much the possession of a wider 
and more intimate knowledge of the great dramatists, and 
of Milton, of Johnson, of Macaulay, or of Wordsworth, 
would do to increase the variety of his illustrations, and 
the interest of his school lessons, it is not necessary 
for me to say; but it will do much more to add dignity 
to his leisure, to enrich and enlarge his own thoughts,, 
and to add to the happiness of his life. 
Economic It will often be found that, besides lectures on chem- 
istry, geology, physiography, and other subjects, which 
have an obvious bearing on the ordinary work of school,, 
a course of good lectures on social and economic science 
will be especially awakening and helpful to teachers. 
They occupy a public position and their co-operation 
and advice are occasionally sought in connexion with 
the administration of local charities, with efforts for the 
encouragement of thrift, and even of philanthropic 
agencies for providing food, clothing, and medical at- 
tendance for the poorer children attending the public 
schools. But the right administration of charity is a fine 
art; it depends on ascertained and verified facts and on 
a scientific method of dealing with those facts. It is not 
a business which can be safely undertaken by persons 
who have no other equipment than kindliness and sym- 
pathy with suffering and who have neglected to trace out 
the effects, often not visible at first sight, of crude and 



The Study of Nature 323 

inconsiderate schemes of benevolence. The economic 
laws which concern the right accumulation and dis- 
tribution of wealth, the nature of the obligations which 
different members of a community owe to each other, 
and which each member owes to himself, the need of 
thrift, forethought, and self-restraint, and the mischief 
done by any public measures which tend to discourage 
the practice of such virtues, the proper spheres re- 
spectively of the charity provided by public taxation on 
the one hand and of private and voluntary beneficence 
on the other — all these are topics which if treated in 
a philosophic and yet sympathetic spirit, are of great 
interest to teachers; because in a higher degree than 
most other men they are likely to have opportunities 
of turning knowledge of these problems to practical 
account. 

There are other wide regions of thought and of The study 
intellectual experience, which the lectures of the Uni- ^-^ ''^^"^^• 
versify Extension Society have made accessible, and yet 
which have been necessarily excluded from the course of 
studies as laid down by oi^cial authority; for example, 
the study of nature and the study of art. In particular I 
may mention the courses of lectures, some of which I 
have heard, on the history of architecture and the charac- 
teristics of the styles prevalent in different ages and 
countries. The student who follows such a course of 
lectures has his eyes opened and becomes conscious of 
a new power, I might almost say a new sense. Every 
public building he sees has henceforth a new meaning. 
He knows by what tokens he can recognize its date, its 
purpose, and the several elements which make up its 
beauty or utility, and the way in which the building 
symbolizes the wants, the tastes, or the religious belief 
of those who erected it. Ever afterwards, when oppor- 



324 University Extension 

tunities of foreign travel come, he knows how to make 
better use of them. 

andofArt. The history of pictorial art, too, the symbolism of 
the early Christian painters, and the different forms in 
which national character and belief have found expression 
in great paintings, is a most stimulating form of mental 
exercise. Modern facilities for lime-light and other illus- 
trations have done much to increase the interest and 
value of such lectures. And in fine, for the special 
purpose I have now in view, it matters little what subject 
is chosen, or whether it can claim to be visibly connected 
with the work of the schoolmaster's daily life or not. But 
it matters much whether or not he can be helped by 
your lectures to take a strong interest in some form of 
learning or enquiry outside of his profession, and so to 
widen his mental horizon as to become conscious of 
the richness of the world of nature, of art, and of human 
character, as well as of the world of books. In other 
words, one chief function of the Extension lectures will 
be to tempt teachers to over-step the boundaries of that 
somewhat arid region which is dominated by a code or 
a syllabus, and to conduct them to "fresh woods and 
pastures new." In the long run the improvement in our 
national education must come, not from Royal Commis- 
sions and Acts of Parliaments, but from the improved 
personal qualifications of our teachers, and from the 
enlargement of their own range of intellectual interests. 
And this is the work in which the agency of the Univer- 
sity Extension is specially fitted to take a leading and 
honourable part. 

Teachers' Hence, I hope that special pains will be taken by 
the authorities to keep themselves in close and friendly 
1-appori with the various local associations connected 
with the Union of Teachers : that they will endeavour to 



Teachers' Associations 325 



learn what is the form of help which those associations 
think most likely to prove useful and acceptable to the 
members; and that they will seek to enlist the services 
of School Boards and Voluntary managers in making 
known in each district the subjects of the proposed 
courses, and the conditions of admission. Where the 
financial arrangements admit, it may often be a boon if 
tickets can be granted to assistants and pupil-teachers at 
a reduced fee. I do not doubt that it is the custom of 
many of your lecturers to give to their audiences a list of 
books to be read in the intervals, and also to offer some 
hints about plans of regular reading and study, the 
writing of abstracts, comments, and criticisms — not for 
purposes of examination, but mainly for the purpose of 
fixing and assimilating the contents of the books read. 
All this kind of suggestion and guidance will be 
welcomed with particular interest by solitary teachers 
engaged in efforts after self- improvement. But these are 
details. 

The main thing to be kept in view is that the 
teachers of our popular schools form a class who have 
already acquired habits of application, and who are 
sometimes in danger of losing those habits. When 
they desire help in pursuing systematic study, the 
association should be ready to give it; but even when 
they desire no such help as may be turned to professional 
account, but only seek for new intellectual resources by 
which to occupy their leisure, and give variety, freshness, 
and happiness to their own domestic and intellectual life, 
they are entitled to the special sympathy of the University 
Extension lecturer, and will be able richly to repay any 
efforts which may be made in their behalf. 



LECTURE XI 

JOSEPH LANCASTER 

Public education in England at the end of the i8th century. 
Philanthropic efforts. Private adventure schools for the poor. 
Crabbers Boroiig/i. Day schools. Joseph Lancaster. His early 
life. His first educational experiment. Interview with the 
King. Successes. Dr Andrew Bell. His work at Madras. 
The National Society. The monitorial system. Lancaster's 
plans of discipline. Their defects. His methods of instruction. 
The schools of the National Society. Training of teachers. 
The National and Lancasterian systems compared. The treat- 
ment of the religious question. Lancaster's disappointments. 
Efforts of his friends to help him. His removal to America. 
Characters of Bell and Lancaster compared. Their work 
estimated. 

Public The eighteenth century was not distinguished, in our 

in Ens- ^^^^ country at least, by any important educational enter- 

land at the ^^i\<~,Q,, Voluntary associations and endowments had in 

^ehiiteenth ^^^ time of Queen Anne ^ brought into existence a con- 

century. siderable number of 'Charity ' schools providing gratui- 

.tous instruction, clothing, and apprentice premiums. In 

this way a few children selected by local trustees received, 

under somewhat humiliating conditions, education which 

though mainly directed to secure the allegiance of the 

scholars to the Established Church was, so far as all secular 

1 Ante, p. 193. Endowments. 
326 



Elementary Education in 1800 327 

subjects were concerned, somewhat narrowly restricted to 
the humblest rudiments. The provision for higher educa- 
tion of the Grammar or Classical type had not received 
any material augmentation during the century. Dry-rot — • 
the curse which falls so frequently upon endowed insti- 
tutions when they are left wholly without supervision — 
had already begun to reveal itself. The restrictions 
laid down in testaments and deeds of gift were often 
found to be unworkable, and ill-adapted to the changed 
necessities of the time, and there was neither in public 
opinion nor in legislation any force available for 
reform. Such laws as the statute-book retained were 
rather designed to check than to encourage educational 
experiments. 

The provision for general public education was in 
fact deplorably inadequate in supply, and defective in 
quality at the end of the century. There were no 
Government grants, no public arrangements for the 
supply of necessary elementary schools. It was not till 
nearly ten years afterwards that the two great voluntary 
societies — the National Society and the British and 
Foreign School Society — were founded and entered on 
what proved to be a career of extensive public usefulness; 
nor until fifty years later that Parliament began to be 
sensible of the importance of providing, subsidizing, and 
directing the schools of the people. Such schools as 
were accessible to the poor were the product of private 
enterprise. The character of that enterprise may be 
inferred from the following extracts. Crabbe, in writ- private 

ing in 1780, describes the schools of his time. Of the ^^{^^"^"/'^ 

schools for 
Dame School he says : — the poor. 

" Where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits 

And awes some thirty infants as she knits. 
* ***** 



328 



Joseph Lancaster 



Crabbe's 

Borough. 



Day 
Schools. 



Her room is small, they cannot widely stray ; 
Her threshold high, they cannot run away. 
Though deaf, she sees the rebel-hearers shout ; 
Though lame, her white rod nimbly walks about. 
"With band of yarn she keeps offenders in, 
And to her gown the sturdiest rogue can pin. 
Aided by these, and spells, and tell-tale birds. 
Her power they dread, and reverence her words." 

The poet's sketch of the keeper of a boys' school is 
evidently made from life and is hardly more inviting : — 

" Poor Reuben Dixon has the noisiest school 
Of ragged lads who ever bowed to rule ; 
Low in his price — the men who heave our coals 
And clean our causeways send him boys in shoals. 
To see poor Reuben with his fry beside 
Their half-checked rudeness, and his half-scorned pride, 
Their room, the sty in which the assembly meet. 
In the close lane behind the Northgate Street ; 
To observe his vain attempts to keep the peace 
Till tolls the bell, and strife and troubles cease. 
Calls for our praise. His labour praise deserves, 
But not our pity ; Reuben has no nerves. 
'Mid noise and dirt and stench and play and prate 
He calmly cuts the pen or views the slate." ^ 

Here is another picture by a contemporary writer, of 
the elementary schools of the time : — 

" Initiatory ScJiooh. These are schools that abound in every 
poor neighbourhood about London : they are frequented by boys 
and girls, indiscriminately, few of them above seven years of age ; 
the mistress is frequently the wife of some mechanic, induced to 
undertake this task from a desire to increase a scanty income, or to 
add to her domestic comforts. The subjects of tuition are comprised 
in reading and needlework. The numl)er of children that attend a 
school of this class is very fluctuating, and seldom exceeds thirty : 
their pay is very uncertain. Disorder, noise, &c. seem more the 
characteristic of these schools than the improvement of the little 
ones who attend them." 



1 Crabbe's Borough^ Letter xxiv. Schools. 



Private advcntitre schools 329 



Second Class of Schools. The masters of these are often the 
refuse of superior schools, and too often of society at large. The 
pay and number of scholars are alike low and fluctuating; of course 
there is little encouragement for steady men either to engage, or 
continue in this line, it being impossible to keep school, defray its 
expenses, and do the children regular justice, without a regular 
income. Eventually many schools, respectable in better times, are 
abandoned to men of any character, who use as much chicane to fill 
their pockets as the most despicable pettifogger. Writing-books, &c., 
scribbled through, whole pages filled with scrawls, to hasten the 
demand for fresh books. These schools are chiefly attended by the 
children of artificers, &c., whose pay fluctuates with their employ, 
and is sometimes withheld by bad principle. Debts are often 
contracted that do not exceed a few shillings; then the parents 
remove their children from school and never pay it, the smallness 
of the sum proving an effectual bar to its recovery : the trouble 
and loss of time being worse than the loss of money in the first 
instance. * * * * 

" It is not much to be wondered at if these discouraging 
circumstances often produce deviations from strict rectitude, where 
principle is not deeply rooted in the mind, which prove very 
oppressive to parents and scholars, as in some instances, permitting 
the boys to write five or six copies in an afternoon, obviously that 
more books may be bought of the master to his profit. In some 
schools the pens are scarcely ever mended, and in general the poor 
children are much stinted in this article. It is very essential to their 
improvement that their pens should be good, and it operates on their 
minds in a very discouraging manner when otherwise. I am credibly 
informed that some masters use pinions in their rough state, neither 
dutched nor clarified; of course they spHt up, with teeth Hke a saw, 
and write just as well. * * * * 

" The desks children write at are often badly suited for that 
purpose, the school-rooms close and confined, and almost all the 
accommodations unfit for the purpose. Independent of the bad 
effects such places produce on the children's health, many having to 
date the ruin of their constitutions from confinement therein ; the 
drunkenness of a schoolmaster is almost proverbial. Those who 
mean well are not able to do so ; poverty prevents it ; and the 
number of teachers who are men of liberal minds, are few ; yet, not 
being sensible of the incalculable advantages arising from system 
and order, it is no wonder if it is at a very low ebb among them. 



330 Joseph Lancaster 

The poor parent often becomes sensible that something is amiss, but 
knows not what ; and, induced by this motive, hurries the child from 
one school to another frequently, and thereby makes bad worse ; and 
is eventually disappointed as much as ever. The want of system 
and order is almost uniform in every class of schools within the 
reach of the poor, whose indifferent attainments at school often arise 
as much from equal impatience and unsettled disposition in their 
parents, as deficiency of care in the masters, or want of order in their 
schools. In fact there is little encouragement for masters, parents, 
or scholars; and while this is the case it is no wonder that ignorance 
prevails among the poor." 

Joseph These extracts are taken from a pamphlet entitled 

Lancaster. "Improvements in Education as it respects the indus- 
trious classes of the community," which was published 
in 1802 by Joseph Lancaster, a young man of 24 years of 
age who had begun to take a keen interest in the educa- 
tion of the poor. He was the son of a Chelsea pensioner, 
an old soldier who had served in the American War, and 
his childhood had been passed in a very humble but an 
orderly and God-fearing household. It is very pathetic 
to find how early and how deeply his heart was stirred 
with love to God, and with a desire to be useful to 
children. One incident will furnish a key to much else 
in his strange impulsive character, and his wayward and 
diversified life. 
His early At the age of 14, Clarkson's Essay on the slave trade 
^ ' had fallen in the boy's way; and alone, without taking 

anyone into his counsel, he determined to go to Jamaica 
to teach the poor blacks to read the Word of God. He 
quitted his father's house in the Borough Road, without 
the knowledge of his parents, and determined to walk to 
Bristol, having only with him a Bible, a Pilgrim^ s Progress, 
and a few shillings in his pocket. The first night he 
slept under a hedge and the next under a haystack. On 
his journey he fell in with a mechanic who was also going 



His early life 331 

to Bristol. They walked together, and as Joseph's money 
was all expended, his companion sustained him. On 
arriving at his destination, he was penniless and almost 
shoeless. He entered himself as a soldier and was sent 
to Milford Haven the next morning. "On board he was 
the object of much ridicule, and was contemptuously 
styled 'parson.' The captain being absent one day, 
the officers asked him if he would preach them a sermon. 
He replied, 'Yes, if you will give me leave to go below 
for half-an-hour to read my Bible.' They said, 'Oh cer- 
tainly, an hour if you choose.' When he came up there 
was a cask placed upon deck, and the ship's company 
were all assembled. Having placed him on the cask he 
proceeded to lecture them on their habits of profane 
swearing and drunkenness, at first much to their mirth 
and amusement, but after a little they began to droop 
their heads, when he told them if they would leave off 
their wretched practices, repent and turn to the Lord, 
they might still be happy here and hereafter. After the 
sermon he was treated kindly, no one was suffered to 
laugh at him or use him ill during the three weeks he 
remained on board." ^ 

By the interposition of friends he soon obtained his 
discharge and returned home. But he was restless and 
uneasy, unwilling to devote himself to any trade, and 
longing to be at more congenial work. 

" It was my early wish," he said in his autobiography, 
"to spend my life to the glory of Him who gave it, and 
in promoting the happiness of my fellow men. With this 
view I looked forward to the dissenting ministry at the 
age of 16, but it pleased God to favour me with such 
different views of things that I became a frequenter of 
the religious meetings of the Society of Christians called 

1 Sketches by Henry Dunn. 



332 



JosepJi Lancaster 



His first 
educa- 
tional ex- 



Quakers, and ultimately a member of that society. Soon 
after this my attention was directed to the education of 
the poor." 

In 1798, when only 20 years of age, he made his 
first public effort in this direction. Even this effort 
periment. was not wholly tentative and experimental, since he had 
two years earlier already gathered a few children at his 
father's house, and had been for several months busy in 
instructing them, and gaining confidence in himself and 
his work. He hired a large room in the Borough Road, 
and put up an announcement, ''All that will may send 
their children and have them educated freely, and those 
who do not w^ish to have education for nothing may pay 
for it if they please." This invitation was largely ac- 
cepted, and even in his twenty-first year he had nearly 
a thousand children round him. "They come to me for 
education like flocks of sheep," he said. The attention 
of several eminent men, among whom were the Duke of 
Bedford, Lord Somerville, and Mr Whitbread, was directed 
to him, and the report of his usefulness began to spread. 
Nevertheless, the undertaking was full of difficulties. 
Success came faster than he was prepared to meet it. 
Although a few private friends assisted him with money, 
the responsibility which came upon him was heavy 
enough to have appalled a far-seeing or judicious man. 
Lancaster, however, was neither far-seeing nor judicious. 
He was elated by his success. He was upheld through 
all the difficulties of his bold enterprise not only by 
an earnest faith in his own powers, but by an affec- 
tionate interest in the children whom he taught. Like 
all true teachers, he loved his work, and entered into it 
with all his soul. "A loving heart," some one has said, 
"is the beginning of all knowledge." It is also the 
beginning of all teaching power. There is something 



First educational experiments 333 



very simple and touching in the stories which are told of 
his personal intercourse with the poor and ragged little 
ones whom he gathered from the streets. He rejoiced 
to share in their play. If he found that any of them 
were hungry or destitute, he would raise a subscription, 
and provide dinner for them, himself presiding at their 
meal. " On Sunday evenings he would have large com- 
panies of pupils to tea, and after enjoying very pleasant 
intercourse, would conclude with reading a portion of 
the Scriptures in a reverential manner." Nothing 
delighted him more than to place himself at the head 
of his whole troop, and to march out with them for a 
holiday ramble in the country. He was never weary of 
devising new forms of gratification for them. He 
thought no personal sacrifice great which helped to 
increase his own knowledge of the scholars, and to give 
him greater power of being useful to them. He illus- 
trated in his own person Coleridge's well-known lines : — 

" Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye 
Drops on the cheek of one he Ufts from earth. 
He that does me good with unmoved face 
Does it but half, he chills me while he aids ; 
My benefactor, not my brother man. " ^ 

To this remarkable sympathy with children was 
naturally united a rare power of gaining their affections 
and securing their obedience. It is not surprising there- 
fore, that his friends were very soon able to point to 
some very striking and tangible results of his scheme. 
The large school-room in the Borough Road, into which 
he marched in high triumph at the head of 1000 boys, 
presented to the visitors who thronged to see it, an orderly 
and beautiful spectacle. It is true, that for several hun- 

1 Meditative Poems. 



334 JosepJi Lancaster 

dred children there was but one master, but he had for 
his assistants a picked company of the elder boys, who 
looked up to him with reverence, and rejoiced to carry out 
his plans. The material appliances for teaching were of 
the scantiest kind; a few leaves torn out of spelling books 
and pasted on boards, some slates, and a large fiat desk 
on which the little ones wrote with their fingers in sand. 
But such work as was possible with these materials was 
faithfully and energetically done. It is no small thing to 
say, that by his method reading, writing, and simple arith- 
metic were really taught. The children were indeed unpro- 
mising and often unshod, and had been gathered together 
from dirty and ill-ordered homes; but there was a cheer- 
fulness in their deportment, and a military precision in 
their order and movements which were very remarkable 
and which formed a striking contrast, not only to the 
habits from which they had been rescued but also to the 
usual aspect even of the best schools of the day. Joseph 
Lancaster had the skill which gains the loyalty of subor- 
dinates, and he knew how to inspire his monitors with 
fondness for their work, and with pride in the institution 
of which they formed a part. As these youths became 
more trustworthy, he felt himself more at leisure to 
accept some of the many invitations which crowded 
upon him, and to expound his system by lectures in 
various towns. His popularity increased: his school 
excited daily more sympathy and public attention, and 
was visited, as he himself said with pardonable vanity, 
"by persons of the first rank in the nation." 
Inierviezv His fortunes may be said to have reached their 
A'inp-^^ highest point in 1805, when the King sent for him to 
Weymouth, and desired to have an account of his doings. 
The interview is thus described in a memoir left behind 
him by Mr William Corston, one of Lancaster's most 



Interviezv with the King 335 

faithful and disinterested friends: "On entering the 
royal presence, the King said, 'Lancaster, I have sent 
for you to give me an account of your system of educa- 
tion, which I hear has met with opposition. One master 
teach 500 children at the same time ! How do you keep 
them in order, Lancaster ? ' Lancaster replied, 'Please 
thy Majesty, by the same principle thy Majesty's army is 
kept in order, by the word of command.' His Majesty 
replied, 'Good, good; it does not require an aged gen- 
eral to give the command; one of younger years can 
do it.' Lancaster observed that in his schools the 
teaching branch was performed by youths, who acted as 
monitors. The King assented, and said, 'Good.' Lan- 
caster then described his system, and he informed me 
that they all paid great attention and were highly de- 
lighted; and as soon as he had finished, his Majesty said, 
* Lancaster, I highly approve of your system and it is my 
wish that every poor child in my dominions should be 
taught to read the Bible; I will do anything you wish to 
promote this object.' 

'"Please thy Majesty,' said Lancaster, 'if the system 
meets thy Majesty's approbation, I can go through the 
country and lecture on the system, and have no doubt 
but in a few months I shall be able to give thy Majesty 
an account where ten thousand poor children are being 
educated, and some of my youths instructing them.' 
His Majesty immediately replied, 'Lancaster, I will 
subscribe ^100 annually; and,' addressing the Queen, 
'you shall subscribe ^50, Charlotte; and the princesses 
^25 each,' and then added 'Lancaster, you may have 
the money directly.' Lancaster observed, 'Please thy 
Majesty, that will be setting thy nobles a good example.' 
The royal party appeared to smile at this observation: 
but the Queen observed to his Majesty, ' How cruel it is 



336 JosepJi Lancaster 

that enemies should be found who endeavour to hinder 
his progress in so good a work.' To which the King 
replied, 'Charlotte, a good man seeks his reward in the 
world to come.' Joseph then withdrew." 
Successes. The success and popularity which attended him may 

be judged from the fact that in his report for 1810 he 
sums up his work by stating that he has given 67 lectures, 
has travelled 3,775 miles, and addressed 23,840 hearers, 
raised ^1,660 in subscriptions after his lectures, besides 
;£"i,440 contributed afterwards, and that fifty new schools 
had been opened, with 14,200 scholars. A deputation 
from one of the South American republics had visited the 
Borough Road and afterwards sent young men to learn 
the system and introduce it into the Caracas. Schools 
on the monitorial system were introduced into the lead- 
ing American cities, and the Duke of Kent — our Queen's 
father — adopted the Lancasterian methods in the Army 
Schools. 
Dr All this while, another and parallel movement was 

Bdl ^^^ going on, in the same general direction, but in a some- 
what different spirit. Andrew Bell, the son of a barber 
in S. Andrews, was 25 years older than Lancaster, and 
after a short course of education in the University of his 
native city, went out into the world as a private tutor. 
He travelled first with a pupil to Virginia, where he 
contrived by tobacco speculations to make a little fortune 
of ^900 in four or five years. He returned to England, 
took orders in the Church, and in 1787 went out to India 
with a rather vague intention of lecturing on natural 
philosophy and doing other work by way of tuition. He 
was always very skilful in self-assertion and he achieved 
unexpected success in bringing his merits under the 
notice of governors and people of influence. He was 
appointed to one or two lucrative military chaplaincies, 



Dr A ndrcw Bell 337 

and also to the office of Superintendent of the Military 
Male Orphan Asylum at Madras. It was in this institu- 
tion that owing to the difficulty of getting suitable adult 
assistants, and of managing and retaining them, he was 
driven to the device of breaking up the school into small 
classes and setting the elder boys to teach the younger. 
The success of this experiment during nine years was 
unexpectedly encouraging. "I think," he said, "I have 
made great progress and almost wrought a complete 
^change in the morals and character of a generation of 
boys." 

The year after returning home in 1796 he published The 
a pamphlet, "An Experiment in Education made at the ^^'J^^J^^"^ 
Male Asylum of Madras, suggesting a system by which a 
school or family may teach itself under the superintend- 
ence of the master or parent." He had during his resi- 
dence in India succeeded in more ways than one; for by 
some of those inscrutable methods by which fortunes 
were sometimes made in India in the old "Company" 
days, he — a clergyman and a schoolmaster — managed to 
get together and to bring home ^26,000. His pamphlet 
was dedicated to the Directors of the East India Com- 
pany and was largely circulated among the clergy, many 
of whom were becoming awake to the importance of pub- 
lic education. Thus schools on what was called his sys- 
tem began to be founded in various parts of England. 
It will be seen that in point of time his publication 
preceded Lancaster's first tract by four or five years. 
Lancaster read it with much interest, acknowledged his 
obligations to it for many hints, and wrote to Bell in 1804 
mentioning some of his difficulties, asking for advice, and 
proposing to come down for consultation to Swanage, 
where Bell had been comfortably installed in a good liv- 
ing. The meeting was friendly, and up to this time no 
z 



338 JosepJi Lancaster 

anger or rivalry had arisen. When it did arise, it must 
be owned that it shewed itself rather in the controversies 
of the friends and partizans of the two men, than in any 
personal antagonism between themselves. For by this 
time the alarm had been sounded in what is technically 
called the "religious world." Lancaster was a Quaker, 
his system, though animated by an intensely religious 
spirit, and though the reading and explanation of the 
Bible were strongly insisted on, was avowedly unsectarian, 
and all creeds and formularies of faith, all attempts to 
turn the school into a propaganda for the tenets of any 
particular denomination of Christians were rigidly inter- 
dicted. Hence to some of the dignitaries of the Church, 
to Southey and the writers of the Quarterly Review, and 
especially to Mrs Trimmer, a courageous, facile, but nar- 
row and fanatical writer, much in favour with our grand- 
fathers and mothers, the system of Lancaster seemed 
fraught with terrible peril to Church and State. Lan- 
caster was described as an infidel and atheist by preachers 
and in archidiaconal and episcopal charges. For ex- 
ample, Archdeacon Daubeny in his Visitation Charge 
at Salisbury in 1806 denounced Lancaster as an infidel, 
and his system of education as " deism under the impos- 
ing guise of philanthropy, making a covert approach to 
tne fortress of Christianity with a view to be admitted 
within her walls." 
The Thus the "system " of Bell, with which, though it was 

ationa ^^ organic part of his original plan, the rigorous dogmatic 
teaching of the Prayer Book and Catechism became 
identified, was believed by many good people to be the 
only possible system of religious education. In 181 1 
the "National Society for the Education of the Poor 
in the principles of the Established Church " set up 
its head-quarters at the Sanctuary at Westminster, 



TJic Monitorial System 339 

attracted powerful episcopal and social patronage, and 
pursued its course in avowed hostility to Lancaster and 
his system. Exaggerated denunciation of that system 
as "godless " and politically mischievous, provoked an 
equally exaggerated estimate of its claims and merits on 
the other side.-^ Not only Quakers and other dissenters, 
but liberal Churchmen, Whig statesmen, the Edi)iburgh 
Review, Sydney Smith, Lord Brougham, and the whole 
of that educational party which ultimately founded the 
Society for the Diffusion of L^seful Knowledge, and 
the London University College, besides one or two of 
the Royal princes, notably the Duke of Sussex and the 
Duke of Kent, identified themselves with Lancaster and 
his system, and repaid with interest the acrimony of 
orthodox criticism. 

The Edinbin-gh Review said of the Monitorial System The Moni- 
that "Lancaster had devised a method and brought ^^sv^tem 
very near to perfection, by which education could be 
placed within the reach of the poorest." From time 
to time it was lauded by Whig writers as "a beautiful 
discovery, an inestimable discovery, a most valuable 
method." 

The Society, at first called the Royal Lancasterian 
Society, was founded in 1808 and received large sub^^^ 
scriptions and constant accessions of powerful friends. 
In this way the world began to think that there were 
two fundamentally different "systems" of education 

1 In " algebra and geometry, even the sublime theorems of 
Newton and La Place may be taught by this method. * * We do 
not hesitate to say that it is applicable or may soon be applied to 
the whole circle of human knowledge." — Edinburgh Revieiv, iSii. 
" I confess that I recognize in Lancaster the benefactor of the human 
race. I consider his system as creating a new era in education." — 
De Witt Clinton at the opening of a new Free School in New York, 
1810. 



340 Joseph Lancaster 

carried on under the names of these rivals. Yet the 
differences were not essential but were rather accidental 
products of later circumstances. Rival societies are 
very naturally tempted to accentuate their differences 
and to develop work, even though it be the same 
work, in different ways. To both men the idea had 
occurred to teach by means of monitors, and the method 
of teaching writing on sand desks which had been sug- 
gested to Bell by seeing the native boys make drawings 
with their fingers on the sandy fields of Madras, had been 
adopted by both of them. Otherwise the two men 
worked independently. 
Lan- Lancaster, though a "Friend," evolved an elaborate 

'^tfamof system of military drill, reduced the whole school to 
discipline, companies, and specially prided himself on having solved 
many practical difficulties by applying to a school the 
organization of a regiment, with all its evolutions under 
the word of command. His system of badges, tickets, 
and rewards were designed expressly to cultivate in 
every child the ambition to play a useful part in the 
organization of the whole school. He believed that 
boys, whose activity when ill-regulated becomes a source 
of nothing but mischief, liked order, method, and the 
responsibilities of office, when a little honour and emolu- 
ment could be had in exercising them. He sought to 
multiply little offices and to give every scholar plenty to 
do, and a motive for getting higher, and doing something 
better. The gradation of ranks among the monitors, the 
confidence which was placed in them, and the rewards 
and honours which were accessible to them, rendered 
the office an object of general ambition. They furnished 
a stimulus to the efforts of the younger children and 
fostered in the monitors themselves a spirit of manliness 
and self-respect, which though apt to assume here and 



Lancaster^ s methods 341 

there the form of tyranny and conceit contrasted strik- 
ingly with the sullen, hopeless way in which school work 
was often done. The discipline of Lancaster's schools 
was not marked alone by beauty and military precision. 
The whole tone of the place was joyous, duties were agree- 
ably varied from hour to hour, and though the noise often 
bewildered and stunned a visitor, it was at least the noise 
of animated work, and was succeeded in an instant at the 
word 'Halt ' by perfect stillness. Those who remember 
the aspect of the old Lancasterian School have testified 
that a brighter and happier scene could scarcely be wit- 
nessed; — ''a place for everything and everything in its 
place," a large multitude of children all busy and de- 
lighted, and an army of monitors loyal to their master, 
full of zeal to please him, and proud of the beauty and 
fame of the spectacle of which they formed a part. 

It is impossible, however, for a modern teacher to 'fheir 
imitate, or even to justify all his plans of discipline. His '^''J^^'^^- 
dislike of flogging was so great that he taxed his ingenuity 
to devise other forms of punishment. The result as 
printed in his tracts is sufficiently grotesque. There 
are chapters gravely headed "of Logs," "of Shackles," 
"of the Basket" (a contrivance in which refractory 
boys were slung up into the roof of the schoolroom by a 
pulley, and remained suspended there, for the ridicule of 
the rest, as birds in the cage). These and other expe- 
dients by which he sought to avoid the actual infliction 
of bodily pain appear to us puerile and mischievous. 
They appealed to the sense of shame only, they must 
often have wounded sensitive children and hardened 
rude ones; and they had the fatal defect of encouraging 
that habit of laughing at wrong-doing and getting 
amusement out of it, which is so hurtful to the con- 
science of a child. 



342 Joseph Lancaster 

His As to what was called his method of instruction, 

inetioi there is after all little to be said. His aims were very 
oj^ in- ^ 

strudion. humble, they did not go beyond the reading of the Bible, 
writing, spelling, and casting accounts. And his notion 
of the way in which these things were to be taught were 
somewhat crude and mechanical. There was none of the 
philosophy of education to be traced in it. Here for 
example is the account which he gives in his "Improve- 
ments in Education " of his method of teaching to spell. 
After describing the way in which monitors could most 
expeditiously look over the slates of a large class he says : 
"If 20 boys thus spell 200 words each, the same 
number spelt by 60 boys must produce a great increase 
of total. Each boy can spell 100 words in a morning. 
If 100 scholars can do the 200 mornings yearly, the 
following will be the total of their efforts towards im- 
provement." And then he sets forth in triumph with a 
note of admiration at the end this multiplication sum : 
" 100 words 

200 mornings 



20,000 words spelt by each boy per annum. 
100 boys 

2,000,000 total words spelt in one year." 

This rather absurd calculation, put forth gravely and 
in perfect good faith, was characteristic of his notion of 
education. His mode of teaching arithmetic was 
equally mechanical. A plan which would save the time 
of boys in computing, secure the supervision needful to 
prevent copying and so cause a greater number of sums 
to be done in a given time, seemed to him the chief thing 
to be desired. Of the understanding of the rules there 
is no hint. If, however, the instruction in the schools 
was limited to the barest rudiments, if it included little 



The Natiojial Schools 343 

or nothing which appealed to the understanding or the 
taste, two or three things must be considered. The 
work was done at a very small expense and with very 
poor material. His school of 1,000 boys was carried on 
under one master at the annual cost of five shillings per 
head. Moreover the boys and girls did undoubtedly 
learn to read, write, and bring out the answers in arith- 
metic, and to do these things well. If to this we add 
that they also learned order and obedience, acquired the 
sense of corporate life, became conscious of their duty 
to others, and were constantly and affectionately ad- 
dressed by their master about their duty to God, we 
must own that the results even from an educational point 
of view were not insignificant. 

In the schools of the National Society, which were The 
conducted on what was called the Madras system, \_\\q ^^'^^oajs 

of the 

results were not dissimilar. It is true Bell himself found National 
it necessary very early to soothe the apprehensions of Society. 
some of his friends, by declaring that the children of the 
poor ought not to have too much education, and by 
expressing grave doubts whether writing and ciphering 
were not rather dangerous arts, which would make the 
poor too good for their station, and undermine the 
foundations of society. Rather with a view to reassure 
some of his influential friends than to express his own 
convictions, one of his pamphlets contains this sen- 
tence : " It is not proposed to educate the poor in an 
expensive manner; for in Utopian schemes for the uni- 
versal diffusion of general knowledge, there is a risk of 
elevating those who are doomed to the drudgery of daily 
labour, above their station; and rendering them unhappy 
and discontented with their lot." To read the Bible and 
learn the Catechism, and to betaken to church on Sundays, 
made up a programme which satisfied the supporters of 



344 JosepJi Lancaster 

the National Society for many years. If f.ancaster failed 
to teach Grammar or Geography or the principles of 
Arithmetic, it was not because he would not gladly have 
given these things to the poor children if he could; but 
simply because his resources and his agents were unequal 
to the work. But Bell's friends, inheriting the feeling 
towards the poor which was dominant in the mind of 
the founders of Charity Schools a century earlier,^ were 
often wont to describe their own schemes of education 
as calculated rather to repress than to stimulate intel- 
lectual activity. The modest curriculum of the National 
Schools and of the British Schools alike was limited 
in its range, but in the one case it was limited by 
circumstances only, in the other by deliberate intention 
and on principle. At all events Bell was able to assure 
those of his supporters who had misgivings about his 
scheme, that nothing dangerously ambitious or subver- 
sive of the social order would be taught in his schools. 
Otherwise the differences between the two plans were 
unimportant. Lancaster liked small classes of ten or 
twelve, standing in a semicircle; Bell arranged a rather 
larger number in three sides of a square and seated on 
forms. Lancaster grouped all his writing-desks in one 
large mass, filling up the middle of the room, and facing 
a high platform with an ^'' cstradc'' for the master; Bell 
placed his desks round the walls of the room. Lancaster 
believed in the stimulus and corporate life which are 
associated with large numbers. Bell and the National 
Society preferred schools of moderate size, not exceeding 
two or at most three hundred. 
Training Very early in the development of both experiments, 
of teachers. ^^ question how to provide a race of teachers qualified 

1 Ante, p. 193. 



The 'National ' and 'British ' systems 345 



to carry on monitorial schools became urgent, and each 
of the two societies made an attempt to train school- 
masters and mistresses for their work. The training, 
however, was very crude and inadequate, and in the light 
of modern experience hardly deserves to be called train- 
ing at all. Men and women went to the Borough Road 
or to Westminster for three months to " learn the system " 
as it was termed; and tliis learning of the system con- 
sisted in spending a week or more in each of the classes 
from the lowest to the highest, and towards the end 
of the time, spending a few days in taking the general 
oversight in turns of one section of the school, and finally 
conducting its collective drill and evolutions as a whole. 
There were no private studies, no regular instruction for 
the candidates in the subjects they had to teach, no lec- 
tures or exposition of method. The system was to be 
learned by seeing it in oi)eration, and by that alone. 
Here, again, there was a difference between the practice 
of the Lancasterian, and of the National Society's Model 
School. At the Borough Road, each candidate in train- 
ing put himself beside the monitor, and after a short 
time took the monitor's place occasionally, and so be- 
came ac(piainted with all the details of the monitorial 
work from the bottom of the school to the top. But the 
National Society made the poor trainee take the i)lace 
of a scholar, in each class in succession, and 1 have been 
told by those who have witnessed it, how absurd a spec- 
tacle was presented when tall, full-grown men were seen 
sitting meekly in their places with little children, being 
often taken down by them to a lower ])lace, and directed 
in their movements by an upstart little boy who was 
monitor of the class. 

Bell was very proud of his system, seriously believed 
it to l)e the grandest and most beneficent discovery ever 



34^ Joseph Lancaster 

made, and went about the country lecturing in order to 
propagate his views and to encourage the establishment 
of new Church schools. Yet all the while he had a very 
keen eye to the main chance, and found that fame and 
fortune came to him together. In 1801 he became 
Rector of Swanage, then a valuable preferment. After- 
wards he was nominated to the Mastership of a rich 
endowed Hospital at Sherburn in Durham, then to a 
Canonry at Worcester, then to a Canonry at Westminster. 
Mr Meiklejohn, the present able occupant of the Chair 
of Education in St Andrews University, founded by Bell's 
Trustees, quotes in his interesting life of Bell a letter 
from one of his friends who knew him and his character 
well, " Don't moderate your ambition to Sherburn Hospi- 
tal, but continue your progress to the mitre. For very 
little money you may be paragraphed up to the episcopal 
throne." Indeed there were many people so sensible 
of the services Bell had rendered to the Church, that he 
was regarded as a very deserving candidate for the highest 
ecclesiastical preferment. He himself was strongly of 
that opinion, but the whole of his ambition was not 
gratified. He contrived, however, to accumulate a for- 
tune of ^120,000. His virtues were lauded in a flatter- 
ing biography by Southey, and by a yet more enduring 
monument in Westminster Abbey, representing him seated 
by the side of a class of poor boys while the monitor is 
teaching them to read. His life, though privately not 
happy, nor eminently estimable, was undoubtedly one of 
much honour, prosperity, and public usefulness. 
Lan- Very different was the career of poor Joseph Lancas- 

^misfor- '^^'^' "^^^ fortunes reached their highest point in 1805 
times. when he had his memorable interview with the King. 
Powerful friends took him by the hand; contributions 
flowed in; but he had never been accustomed to the 



Lancaster s misfortimcs 347 

management of money and he did not know its value. 
He had no foresight, and the sums which he could com- 
mand, though often large, came into his hands in a fitful 
and uncertain way which only served to encourage his 
improvident habits. When a good subscription came in 
he would spend it recklessly in treats and presents to his 
scholars, or would take a whole party of his favourite 
youths into the country with him to illustrate his lectures, 
and show how the system was worked. In 181 1 he 
visited Ireland, gave many lectures, and was instrumental 
in establishing a model school in Dublin, which was 
placed under the care of one of his young men from the 
Borough Road, and which achieved some permanent 
success. At Hull, Newcastle, York, and Leeds, he was 
generously welcomed, and during a single year was able 
to say that a new Lancasterian School had been opened 
in every week. His letters during this period are filled 
with expressions of enthusiasm and hope. But the least 
rebuff or opposition wounded his vain and sensitive 
nature to the quick, and overwhelmed him with despair. 
His enthusiastic temperament led him to exaggerate both 
his failures and his successes, and to fancy that every 
incident which depressed or gladdened him was a special 
Divine visitation. 

"I called at the Borough Road," wrote one of his 
friends, "to enquire about the training of a master, and 
after some conversation with Lancaster relating to the 
necessary arrangements for the man's attendance, I 
slipped a ^10 note into his hand as an acknowledgment 
of my obligations. What was my astonishment to see 
this quiet man with whom I had a moment before been 
calmly conversing, at once turn pale, tremble, stand fixed 
as a statue, and then flinging himself upon my shoulder, 
burst into a flood of tears, exclaiming, * Friend, thou 



348 Joseph Lancaster 

knewest it not, but God hath sent thee, to keep me from 
a gaol, and to preserve my system from ruin.' " 

Fits of deep depression alternated with other fits of 
wild hope and religious fervour. When pressed for 
money, he says he cannot believe that if the Almighty 
has designed the education of the poor of London, a few 
pitiless creditors can prevent it, "only let the eyes of his 
friends be opened and they will soon see the mountain 
full of horses of fire and of chariots of fire round about 
Elijah." He is arrested for debt, and remains three 
days in the spunging house and no one has been to see 
him, but he is as happy as Joseph was in the King's 
prison in Egypt. After a while, he asked for a sheriff's 
oflficer to take him to the King's Bench prison, but ob- 
tained leave to call at home on the way thither. When 
he got home his wife and child, and all his young 
monitors were assembled, overwhelmed with grief be- 
cause he was going to prison. After being with them a 
little he opened the parlour door and said to the man, 
" Friend, when I am at home, I read the Scriptures with 
my family, hast thou any objection to come in ! " He re- 
plied, " No Sir, " and went in. After he had read a chapter 
or two he went to prayer. The man soon became deeply 
affected and joined in the common grief. After prayer, 
Joseph rose and said, " Now, friend, I am ready for thee." 
Greatly touched, the ofificer on this occasion actually 
offered to become bail for his prisoner. This was not 
the only episode of the like kind. In turn poor Joseph 
experienced the vicissitudes of 

Toil, envy, want, the patron and the gaol. 

Efforts of In 1808 a few noblemen and gentlemen came to his 

^"■'/^^'^'''■^ aid, paid his debts, became his trustees and organized 

him. the Society which was at first known as the Royal Lancas- 

terian Society and afterwards as the British and Foreign 



His later career 349 



School Society. But their generous and business-like 
interposition did not put an end to his troubles. They 
found him impatient of control, and incurably wayward 
and extravagant. They desired to retain his services 
and to treat him with liberality and respect, but his wild 
impulses and heedless projects needed constant check, 
and it was very difficult to make any check effective. 
He resented every arrangement which sought to restrain 
his expenses, or to enable him to work with other people. 
He declared that they degraded him to the position of a 
hireling. "I thought," he afterwards said bitterly, in 
referring to his friends who had set up the British and 
Foreign School Society, "that my sunshine friends had 
been birds of paradise, but the first winter season proved 
them to be birds of passage." In a fit of anger he shook 
the dust from off his feet and betook himself to Tooting, 
where he set up a private school. This undertaking 
failed miserably, he became a bankrupt and emigrated 
in 18 18 to America. 

There he met with a kindly welcome. His cowx^qs His later 
of lectures in the United States were at first well ^^''^^^• 
attended, and a new career of honour and usefulness 
seemed to be opening before him. He wrote home 
letters full of bitter reviling for the false friends who 
he said had betrayed him at home, and declared that 
for the first time the Divine work which had been 
entrusted to him would be truly appreciated. But 
the bubble of his fame soon collapsed. He alienated 
his new friends, and fell once more into debt and 
poverty. Sickness overtook him and he went for a time 
to the warmer climate of the West Indies, and after a 
few months returned to New York, where the Corporation 
in pity for his lamentable condition made him a grant 
of 500 dollars. He was then induced to go to Canada, 



350 Joseph Lancaster 

and at Montreal recommenced his lectures and basked 
for a while in new gleams of public favour. But here 
again he is soon found opening a private school for the 
means of subsistence and not succeeding very well. It 
is very pathetic to read his letters and diary, written 
towards the close of his life. Though he had been 
disowned by the Friends on account of his pecuniary 
and other irregularities, and though his wife and children 
went to church, he could not help yearning after the 
spiritual privileges of a happier time; and in his bare 
school-room he would on Sundays hold a " silent meet- 
ing," sitting all alone and meditating: and listening, if 
perchance he might once more hear the Divine voice. 
''Here," he writes, "I sometimes found the chief things 
of the ancient mountains and the precious influences of 
the everlasting hills resting indeed on the head of Joseph, 
and on the crown of the head of him who was separated 
from his brethren, by distance, by faults, by circum- 
stances, and by the just but iron hand of discipline. I 
longed again and again to come under the purifying and 
baptizing power of the truth which had been the dew of 
my youth, and the hope of all my life in its best 
moments whether of sorrow or joy." A little annuity 
was raised for him by friends in England and for a time 
he subsisted on it; but he again became restless, anxious 
to return to England, and indulging wildly in the pros- 
pect of repeating his former triumphs. He describes 
himself once more as ready to confound all his adver- 
saries, to teach ten thousand children not knowing their 
letters all to read fluently in three weeks to three months. 
"The fire that kindled Elijah's sacrifice had kindled his, 
and all true Israelites would in time see it." 

These visions, however, were not to be realized. He 
was run over by a waggon in the streets of New York, in 



Bell and Lancaster compared 35 1 

October, 1838, and died after a few hours from the effects 
of the accident, in the fifty-first year of his age. 

The characters of the two men were as sharply con- Characters 
trasted as their worldly careers. Dr Bell was ^^^^^^/^^j^^ast'er 
overtaken by religious enthusiasm. His whole life was r^;;//(^z?W. 
disfigured by vanity and self-seeking. He was to the 
inner core of his nature what Mr M. Arnold calls a Philis- 
tine. He went once to Yverdun to see Pestalozzi, but he 
caught no inspiration, saw nothing in his methods, and 
spoke with contempt of a man who wanted several teachers 
for a hundred boys, while he could have taught twice that 
number alone. Mr Meiklejohn, whom many of you 
know so well as the accomplished and able occupant of 
one of the Chairs of Education founded by Bell's Trustees 
and endowed with Bell's money, might perhaps be sup- 
posed under some official obligation to make the best of 
the pious founder. Yet he shows a merciless frankness 
in estimating Bell's character, — a frankness which it 
must be owned is not usual among endowed professors 
when building the tombs of the prophets. It is thus 
that he paints his hero's portrait. "He was not an 
interesting man. He was not a great man; he had very 
little insight into human nature, though here and there 
are to be found glimpses of truth; he was singularly 
narrow-minded, and he was in several respects a terrible 
bore. There is in his own mind hardly a trace of edu- 
cation, or the smallest sign of literary culture. He had 
read Cicero and Quintilian, Milton and Locke, but he 
had read them only for the purpose of digging out of 
them mottoes for the chapters of his works or passages 
in support of his own conclusions. There is no more 
trace of literature in all his voluminous writings than 
there is in the minutes of a corporation, or the report of 
a banking company. He remained to the end of his 



,35^ Joseph Lancaster 



days of the opinion which he expressed when he was 
acting as tutor to his two American pupils, 'I thought 
that a good handwriting was better than all the Greek or 
Latin in the universe ' ; and even after he was a richly 
beneficed clergyman, he looked upon Grammar Schools 
and Universities chiefly as places where people 'contract 
prejudices.' His whole mind and soul were absorbed in 
the one idea of extending to the whole world the blessings 
and peculiarities of the Madras system." ^ 

The difference in the views of religious education 
entertained by the two men was profound; and it still 
survives in a strongly marked form in two sections of the 
friends of religious education. Bell and his followers 
believed it to be the first business of a religious teacher 
to enforce the creed and to attach the scholar to the 
communion of the Church of England. Lancaster 
constantly sought to vindicate the need and the possi- 
bility of a comprehensive and yet Christian system of 
national education. Except through his efforts, and 
those of his friends, all the popular education of this 
country had been given in connexion with some particu- 
lar section of the Christian Church; and the catechisms 
and formularies which are distinctive of sects and 
Churches, were regarded by the members of those sects 
as the basis of all possible religious instruction. But 
Lancaster thought that there were deeper truths than 
those which Christians regard as disputable, and that 
it was precisely to those truths that the attention of 
children ought first to be directed. Though a Quaker, he 
never sought to a]:)point persons of his own communion 
to help him as teachers, and he refused to use his school 
as a ])ropaganda for the peculiar tenets of the Friends. 
He believed that national education could be Christian 

^ Andrew Bell, l)y Professor Meiklejohn. 



Their work estimated 353 

without being sectarian. He sought in the British schools 
to teach children to read the Bible, to understand it, to 
love it, and to take it as the guide of their lives; and at 
the same time he carefully abstained from dogmatizing 
on those questions of doctrine and discipline which 
divide Churchman from Dissenter, or Presbyterian from 
Baptist. And this scheme was not a political device for 
conciliating the support of all parties, or for pleasing the 
wavering and indifferent. It grew out of the experience 
Qf a devout and earnest man, who, loving his own form 
of religious worship with passionate zeal, loved Chris- 
tianity and the interests of children more earnestly still. 
In future days when the principle of comprehensive and 
unsectarian instruction becomes yet more generally ad- 
mitted than at this moment, it ought not to be forgotten 
that Lancaster was the first to enunciate it, and that he 
endured more odium for it than any of his contempo- 
raries or successors. 

Nevertheless I am afraid we must admit that neither Their 
Bell nor Lancaster is entitled toaveryhidi place amons;^'"'''^ ^ , 
the great teachers of the world. Both were vain and 
ignorant; both saw one particular aspect of educational 
work in false perspective, and were incapable of taking a 
large or generous view of the business of teaching and 
training as a whole. Neither contributed anything of 
value to the literature of education. I do not really 
know which to a modern reader are more barren of 
interest, the pompous and pretentious tracts of Bell, 
or the incoherent, confused writings of Lancaster, dis- 
figured as they all were by the vehemence with which the 
writers put forth their personal claims. Each of the two 
great societies with which their names were identified has 
since done much valuable work; and during the period 
from 1846 to 1870 it was mainly through the agency of 

2A 



354 Joseph Lancaster 

these societies that the Government distributed the 
Parliamentary grant. Each is at this moment playing an 
honourable, though of course a less relatively important 
part in the work of popular education. Nearly all the 
voluntary effort was directed before the Act of 1870 
either to 'National ' or to 'British ' schools; the Roman 
Catholic Poor School Committee, and the Wesleyan 
Education Committee, having been formed later for 
the maintenance of primary schools adapted for the 
children of their several communions, though other- 
wise conducted on the same educational lines. But 
each of the two great societies has long ago abandoned 
whatever was distinctive in the views of the man who 
gave it a name; and to say the truth, both societies, 
though for very different reasons, have become half 
ashamed of their founders. Bell was the more successful 
man and was more praised both in life and after death. 
Lancaster's life was a failure and his death was ignoble. 
But I think he had the finer nature of the two, and 
more of the 'enthusiasm of humanity.' He had drunk 
more deeply of the spirit of Him who said, "Take heed 
that ye despise not one of these little ones." In the 
midst of all the distractions of his confused and ill- 
managed life, I think he honestly tried to listen to the 
teaching of conscience and the sound of the Divine voice, 
and with more or less of halting and waywardness to 
follow its guidance. 

"But in a great house, there are not only vessels of 
gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth," some 
being meant for greater and some for lesser honour. 
And it is a very happy thing for some of us to reflect 
that in this world to which we have been sent, our great 
Taskmaster is willing to find a use for very humble 
services and for very imperfect instruments. The work 



Results 355 

of these men was not work of the highest quality. It 
was sorely marred and tarnished in the handling; but it 
was in its way honest and good pioneer work; its many 
failures helped to block up some of the roads to future 
failure; and it served to make the next steps to improve- 
ment easier, safer, and more clearly visible than they 
would otherwise have been : — ^Vhat more can any of us 
hope to do than thus to be a link between the days, to 
achieve, not that which is supremely the best, but the 
best within our own power and knowledge, in view of the 
circumstances, needs, and opportunities of our own time, 
and then to leave posterity to take as much or as little 
of it as may prove to be of use? — ■ 

" Our little systems have their day, 

They have their day, and cease to be ; 
They are but broken lights of Thee, 
And Thou, O God, art more than they." 

Moj-e than they ! Yes, in the larger and nobler 
systems of the future, the results of the experiments of 
Bell and Lancaster will be absorbed or superseded. But 
something will survive — something always does survive, 
and ought to survive — from strenuous and honourable 
endeavour to achieve a right purpose. It is only in the 
tender twilight of history, that the outlines of obsolete 
systems are softened, and that controversies can be 
viewed in their true proportions, so that we become able 
to see how much was ephemeral and how much in them 
deserved to be permanent. We can now ask ourselves 
quite calmly: — What was the monitorial system, or as it 
was called the mutual system, which for a time seemed 
to the educational enthusiasts of the first half of this 
century as if it was the greatest discovery of the age? 
To say the truth it was not a method of teaching. It 
was nothing but a method of drill, a contrivance for 



35^ yoseph Lancaster 

utilizing a certain rough and imperfect kind of agency.^ 
Yet it did not shew the agents how to teach; it revealed 
no principles as to the difference between good teaching 
and bad, or as to the way in which knowledge can best 
find entrance into the mind. But, at a time of great 
public apathy, it awakened the national conscience in 
regard to the need of general education for the poor; 
and it greatly helped this awakening by shewing how 
certain simple results could be achieved at a very small 
cost. It unquestionably taught reading, writing, and 
arithmetic and the virtue and the beauty of order. Each 

1 Here for example is the programme of one of his lectures : — 
Royal Lancasterian System of Education. 

Joseph Lancaster the Inventor of the above System intends 
to deliver a Lecture on its Nature and advaiitages^ at the Freemasoti's 
Tavern, Great Queen Street Lincolns Inn Fields, on the Evening 
of the Day called Monday, the ist of Seventh Alonth. [July] i8ii. 

The peculiar advantages of this System are that One Master 
[often a lad from fourteen to eighteen years of age] can be rendered 
competent to the government of a school containing from 200 to 
1000 Scholars. The Expense of Education for each Individual will 
also diminish in proportion as the Number under the care of the 
same master increases. 

The System of Order and Tuition serves in lieu of experience 
and discretion in the Teacher, whose qualification consists only of a 
small degree of Elementary Knowledge. Five Hundred children 
may spell at the same time. A whole school however large may 
read and spell from the same Book. The Master will be wholly 
relieved from the duty of Tuition and have for his charge that of 
frequent inspection of the Progress made by the Pupils. In no case 
will this be more conspicuous than in teaching Arithmetic. The 
preceding Points will be clearly explained during the Lecture, and 
parts of the System will be practically exemplified by a number of 
Boys who will attend for that purpose. A number of Drawings 
will be exhibited to illustrate the peculiar Principles of Rewards 
and Punishments, which form Addenda to the System of Tuition. 



TJie Monitorial System 357 

of the two men, in his own way, succeeded in impressing 
a decidedly religious character on the voluntary Schools 
of England. And they had a clear grasp of one cardinal 
principle, too often overlooked. They regarded a school 
not merely as a place to which scholars should resort to 
get knowledge for themselves, but as an organized com- 
munity for mutual aid and encouragement in the work of 
instruction. The scholar was made to feel that his first 
business was to learn, and his next to help others to 
learn. 

And this principle of mutual help, this solidarity, this 
sense of corporate life, and of the obligation on one 
who knows to make his knowledge useful to others, is 
of abiding importance. This principle at least we may 
hope will survive in all our schools, even when the 
"monitorial or mutual system of instruction" once so 
extravagantly lauded, is wholly forgotten. 



LECTURE XII 

PESTALOZZI 1 

The anniversary. Characteristics of Pestalozzi's teaching. Sense 
Training. How he differed from Rousseau. His religious 
purpose. His rebellion against verbalism. No finality in his 
system. 

The atini- The Son of Sirach introduces a chapter of Ecclesias- 
versary. ^j^^^g — ^ book which is less read than it deserves to be — 
with the words: "Let us now praise famous men and 
our fathers that begat us * * leaders of the people by 
their counsels, and by knowledge and learning meet for 
the people, wise and eloquent in their instructions * * 
the Lord hath wrought great glory by them." And the 
apocryphal writer then proceeds to enumerate the great 
Hebrew teachers, heroes, and poets, and to celebrate 
their achievements. So this commemorative instinct, 
which leads men to recall the deeds and writings of 
departed worthies, and which has drawn you together to- 
night to honour the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
of Pestalozzi's birth, is a very old instinct — and it is a 

1 Presidential Address at the Memorial Conference in the College 
of Preceptors on the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of 
Pestalozzi, October 7, 1896. 

358 



Pestalozzi s anniversary 359 

very true one. We have no better means of keeping 
alive what is memorable in the history and character of a 
man, and what is of permanent value in his teaching, than 
by availing ourselves of these periodical occasions for 
retrospect, and by recalling from time to time what we 
owe to those who have gone before us. A jubilee, a 
birthday, a centenary, furnishes suitable opportunity for 
doing this, and it is very necessary in the case of those 
who, like Pestalozzi, are identified with principles pe- 
culiarly liable to be overlaid with routine and petrified 
into formulas, and therefore needing constantly to be 
reviewed, subjected to new tests, and enforced by help 
of new illustrations. It is in every way fitting that the 
task of recalling to this generation what we all owe to 
Pestalozzi should be undertaken by the authorities of this 
College, an institution which has for many years been 
foremost in its recognition of the fact that education is a 
science, and which has, by means of lectures and con- 
ferences, done so much to elucidate the principles, the 
history, and the art of teaching. And I think those 
authorities have been well advised in determining that 
the fittest way to celebrate this occasion is to invite a 
few persons specially conversant with improved methods 
of teaching to address you, respectively, on some special 
aspects of Pestalozzi 's work and its relation to the needs 
of our modern life. This is a sure way of avoiding 
discursiveness and of giving definiteness to our meeting. 
Your attention will be directed to-day to the spirit and 
influence of Pestalozzi 's teaching generally, to some 
features of his personal biography, especially to his 
failures and disappointments and to his manful and 
courageous determination to overcome difficulties, to his 
influence in Germany, and to the development of his 
principles in our own country. You could not possibly 



360 Pestalozzi 

have the whole subject brought before you under more 
favourable auspices or on a more practical and business- 
like plan. The Council of the College has done well to 
select for the purpose of our discussion some of the most 
distinguished teachers and thinkers of the younger gen- 
eration, each of whom in his or her own way has done 
valuable work in elevating the public estimate of a true 
and rational education; and each of whom is specially 
qualified to distinguish between what is ephemeral or 
obsolete and what is of enduring value in Pestalozzi's 
work. 
Charac- For myself, as one of the older school who has 

/J^^^^J^^Jv^ nevertheless not lost his faith in the future, or his deep 
teaching, sympathy with the best and most fruitful of modern 
educational ideals, my task is a much humbler and 
simpler one. It is to introduce to you in turn the 
readers of the several papers, and to bespeak for them 
that intelligent attention which the audiences in this hall 
are accustomed to give, and to which both the subject of 
discussion and the reputation of the speakers are emi- 
nently entitled. I will not stand except for a very brief 
period between you and them. But I may be permitted 
to refer, in the fewest words, to the two or three features 
of Pestalozzi's teaching which have always appeared to 
me among the most valuable, and which, in my opinion, 
ought never to be permitted to become outworn or 
obsolete. 
Sense The first of these is his insistence on the necessity of 

*' training for the senses and for the physical powers as 
well as for the memory and the understanding. The old 
doctrine, Nihil in intellecttc quod non prius in sensu, was 
with him more than an academic proposition. It was 
the key to his practical methods. It dominated much 
of what is called his system. Hence all the simple 



Rousseau 361 

devices by which he led children to see clearly, to 
exercise the faculty of observation, to draw, to touch, to 
handle, to discover, to imitate, to invent. He did not 
regard the use of printed words and letters as the true 
beginning of all knowledge, but he relied rather on 
intuition, the development of faculty, the rousing of 
curiosity, as the first objects to be achieved in the 
education of a child. Now here is a principle of per- 
manent importance, one of which we do not yet see all 
the practical applications, but one which will guide us in 
coming to right conclusions, in respect, for example, to 
the place which manual training ought to hold as part of 
a scheme of liberal education, as well as to other yet 
unsolved problems of our own time. Raumer, one of 
his affectionate disciples, said of him: "He compelled 
the scholastic world to revise the whole of their task, to 
reflect on the nature and destiny of man, and on the 
proper ways of leading him from his youth towards that 
destiny." This was in fact the main purpose of Pesta- 
lozzi's life. He sought to find for himself and to help 
others to find, a basis for his plans of education, in a 
fresher study of nature and experience. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said of Emerson ^ " that Ho-v he 

he was an iconoclast without the hammer; that the ^^-^^ 

^ p'om 

idols he sought to dethrone he took down from \}i\t.\x Rousseau. 

pedestals so gently and reverently that he seemed more 

like one performing an act of worship." In some sense 

this is true of Pestalozzi. He too was an iconoclast, but 

he went about his work in a very different spirit from 

that which animated Rousseau, to whom he was in other 

respects so nearly akin. Compare Rousseau's "Emile " 

with Pestalozzi 's "Leonard and Gertrude," and you will 

be conscious of a difference of tone as well as of sub- 

^ Cabot's Life of Emerson. 



362 Pestalozzi 

stance. There is in Pestalozzi little or no denunciation, 
none of the fierce revolt against established notions and 
usages which characterized Rousseau, only an earnest 
appeal to parents and teachers — all the more effectual 
because so restrained and modest — to follow books and 
traditions less and to study nature and childhood more. 
His You cannot in any survey of Pestalozzi 's career 

re jgious Q^JQY\ook the deep religiousness of his nature. To him 

purpose. A ° 

the teacher's ofhce was a sacred, indeed a priestly, 
function. The moral purpose of a school was its highest 
purpose. No teacher or writer on education has ever 
more strongly emphasized the truth that character is 
more important even than knowledge, that knowledge is 
only a means to the higher end, not itself an end; and 
that the first business of a school, as of a home, is not so 
much to give formal religious lessons as to provide an 
atmosphere of love and purity and goodness, in which 
all that is gracious and beautiful in a child's character 
may have room to grow. "Man," he said, in one of his 
latest writings, the Swan song, "develops the funda- 
mental elements of his moral life — his love and faith — 
by the exercise of love and faith, just as those of his 
intellectual life — his thought and reflection — by the 
exercise of thought, and those of his practical or indus- 
trial life — the power of his organs and muscles — by 
the exercise of this power." Everywhere you find him 
insisting on the need of spontaneous activity, and on the 
fact that the learner is not passively to receive and to 
reproduce the opinions or the emotions of other people, 
but to be a free and living agent. A school could on 
Pestalozzi's principles do nothing better than to place 
the learner in conditions favourable to the full expansion 
of whatever is best in his intellectual powers and his 
moral and spiritual aspirations. 



Verbalism 363 



Perhaps the most notable feature of Pestalozzi's^2> 
system was his earnest and constant protest against " 

-' . against 

verbalism and teaching by rote. He was very sensible verbalism. 
of the importance of language culture and of the right 
use of words, but he desired in all cases to make the 
word or the technical term come after some knowledge 
of the subject or the distinction which the word repre- 
sented, and not before it or independently of it. In par- 
ticular, he warred against the use of formularies, manuals, 
and text-books which professed to present the whole of 
what was to be known on a given subject, and so to 
supersede the necessity of actual intellectual contact 
between a teacher and pupil. He distrusted all such 
methods. The habit of putting printed questions and 
answers in a book to be committed to memory seemed 
to him deadening and mischievous, and, indeed, destruc- 
tive to any real and vital communication between teacher 
and taught. Happily, his opinions on this topic have 
been generally accepted by all good modern teachers. 
Except in regard to one subject, books of questions and 
answers, 'scientific dialogues,' and the like, have been 
well-nigh abandoned, and are only now used as the last 
resort of examiners who do not know how to examine, 
and of teachers who cannot teach. You know well what 
that one subject is. There is still a fond belief, on the 
part of many good people, that the method of learning 
by heart answers to questions which the teacher reads 
out of a book — a method which has been discredited in 
all other departments of instruction — istJie best method 
of teaching religion. Some day, perhaps, we may eman- 
cipate ourselves from this curious superstition, and learn 
how to apply the principles of Pestalozzi not only to 
arithmetic, and grammar, and history, but to the highest 
and most sacred of all the subjects we have to teach. 



364 Pestalozzi 

No finality Meanwhile, one thing remains to be said. There is 

m his ^^ finality in the system of Pestalozzi. He was a pioneer 
system. •' •' 

only. He saw, with intense clearness, some fundamental 

truths, but he could not foresee all the practical applica- 
tions of those truths. His simple life's experience among 
peasants in Germany and Switzerland did not qualify 
him to understand thoroughly the needs of great and 
crowded towns, or to take a full view of the larger educa- 
tional horizon which we have to deal with now. Had he 
known London, or Paris, or Manchester, their new intel- 
lectual and industrial conditions would certainly have 
interested him deeply and suggested to him new and 
fruitful devices for meeting them. It is for us, who have 
this experience, to adapt what is best in his teaching to 
the changed circumstances and needs of our own time. 
We must remember that it is just as possible for Pesta- 
lozzianism as for any other system to lose its vitalizing 
power, to be stiffened into formulas, and to become 
wooden, pedantic, and uninspiring. I have had occasion, 
during my official life, to know how easy it is to use all 
the phraseology of Pestalozzi, to imitate his object 
lessons, and to accept his technique and his theories, 
and yet to be hopelessly uninfluenced by the spirit of the 
master, and to fall into unintelligent and unsympathetic 
routine. The true way to guard against this danger is to 
perpetuate his spirit as well as his methods, to re-state, 
from time to time, the principles he advocated, to view 
them with fresh eyes in the light of later experience, and 
to seek for the best means of applying and illustrating 
them. That is the purpose for which we are met to-day, 
and I congratulate you on the fact that the task has been 
confided to some of those on whom I have now to call, 
and who are specially qualified to be the exponents of 
his principles and the critics of his work. 



LECTURE XIII 

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE 

Voluntary philanthropy in England. Robert Raikes. The changed 
position of the Sunday Schools. The problem of the future. 
The Lord's Day and its purpose. The working man's Sunday. 
Home influence more potent than that of any school. Sunday 
in our homes. The teacher. Conversation. Reading aloud. 
The School Library. Religious instruction. A teacher's equip- 
ment. Need of preparation. Questioning, Verbal Memory. 
P'ormularies. Catechising in church. Work for the educated 
laity. Children's services. Formation of a habit of attending 
public worship. General conclusions. The Sunday School 
not only a place for religious instruction, but a centre of civili- 
zation and social improvement. 

In the history of English education, nothing strikes Voluntary 
us more than the large share taken in it by private ^^^"^^^'/'-^^ 
voluntary agency and the comparatively small part played England. 
in it by the Government or by legislation. In this respect 
our own country differs materially from most Continental 
nations and especially from Germany; — certainly from 
America where the Puritan fathers of the Eastern States 
made it their first business to provide schools, and 
to set apart a portion of the public land and thus to 

1 Address to the "Women's Diocesan Conference at the Church 
House, Westminster. 

365 



366 TJic Sunday School of tJic Future 

secure means for maintaining them. Here at home, 
some of our educational resources are an inheritance from 
monasteries, chantries, and other religious houses; for a 
few we are indebted to the benefactions of kings and 
nobles, to the pious benevolence of rich men who have 
founded schools, and to municipal and corporate action 
on the part of those who as parents or otherwise felt con- 
scious of a public want, and sought to supply it. But 
the end of the i8th century, and beginning of the pres- 
ent, were distinguished by the efforts of a few men who 
were not rich, and could not be classed as 'pious founders' 
in the ordinary sense, but who gave to philanthropic work 
something better than money — personal service and 
enthusiasm. The spirit which led John Howard and 
Elizabeth Fry to visit prisons, and to bring unofficial 
pressure to bear on prison authorities with a view to the 
alleviation of the sufferings of prisoners, the spirit which 
at the same period animated Clarkson, Wilberforce, and 
the poet Cowper to denounce the African Slave trade, 
and to claim in the name of humanity the emancipation 
of our West Indian slaves, indicated the growth of an 
uneasy feeling in the public conscience in regard to 
great social wrongs. 
Robert In the year 1781 Robert Raikes, a printer, and the 

Kaikes. publisher of a local journal in Gloucester, distressed to 
see the large number of untaught and squalid children 
roaming about the streets of that city, opened a refuge 
for them on Sunday afternoons, and engaged two or three 
women at a shilling per day to take care of the children 
and teach them to read the New Testament. With the 
help of the clergy, children were induced to come in great 
numbers, and many voluntary teachers were soon found. 
The only necessary condition of admission was that the 
children should come with clean hands and faces. Some 



Robert Raikes 367 



of the parents who could afford it paid small fees. The 
instruction was of the humblest kind — reading, spelling, 
writing, and a little simple arithmetic. There were then 
few day schools of any kind open to the children of the 
poor, except the Endowed Charity Schools, which often 
gave clothing as well as gratuitous elementary instruction, 
and admission to which was obtained by the choice and 
private patronage of local trustees.^ The great societies 
for promoting popular instruction — the British and 
Foreign School Society, and the National Society for the 
Education of the Poor in the principles of the Established 
Church — did not come into existence till ten years later. 
The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge had 
been founded in 1698 but had not established schools of 
its own. And no obligation on the part of Parliament 
to concern itself with popular education began to be 
recognized until the middle of the present century. 
Raikes' success at Gloucester was remarkable. Among 
his more influential supporters were Jonas Hanway, John 
Howard, Henry Thornton, Mrs Trimmer, and Hannah 
More; but he found imitators in all parts of the country. 
These were chiefly members of religious bodies, the 
schools were held in churches and chapels, and so 
it came to pass that the Bible furnished the staple of 
instruction in the schools. In later times, as the means 
of secular instruction have been increased by the multi- 
plication of day schools, the Sunday teaching has become 
practically limited to religious subjects. But it ought 
not to be forgotten that the first efforts of Raikes and his 
friends were wider and more general. They did not 
think the teaching of spelling and arithmetic a merely 
secular business inconsistent with the claims or the 
sacredness of the Lord's day; in fact they regarded the 



1 Ante^ p. 191. 



368 



TJie Sunday School of the Future 



The 

changed 

position 

of the 

Sunday 

School. 



Sunday afternoon school not as a supplement to a system 
of day schools, but as the best available substitute for it. 
It was as an expedient for making a small inroad upon the 
mass of ignorance around him that the institution founded 
by Robert Raikes was eminently successful, not only 
because it brought large numbers of neglected children 
within the reach of moral and civilizing influences, but 
also because it awakened among many benevolent and 
religious people a new sense of their responsibility 
towards their less fortunate brethren, and enlisted their 
services as voluntary teachers. In this way a public 
opinion was gradually formed in favour of popular edu- 
cation, which soon afterwards began to express itself in 
aiding Bell and Lancaster, and in efforts to establish 
voluntary day schools. 

It is evident that the history of the present dying 
century has done much to alter the relative position of 
Sunday Schools. They are no longer needed to teach 
reading and writing. The law of 1870 which provides 
adequate day-school accommodation for all the children 
requiring elementary instruction — that is to say for one- 
sixth of the population — and the subsequent legislation 
which compels the attendance of the scholars, have gone 
far to render the Sunday School in one sense superfluous. 
And it must be remembered too, that with very few 
exceptions, our public elementary schools are all im- 
pressed with a religious character. In the voluntary 
schools, which have been established by the religious 
bodies, there is systematic instruction in faith and Chris- 
tian duty, and in the formularies of the several Churches. 
And in the municipal schools — those controlled by the 
School Boards — the Bible is nearly always read and 
explained, and religious instruction, of substantially the 
kind contemplated in many of the best Sunday Schools, 



Purpose of the LonV s Day 369 

is regularly provided. The statutory period not devoted 
to secular instruction, is consecrated under the Time 
Table Conscience Clause exclusively to religious teach- 
ing in Board Schools and Voluntary Schools alike. 

What then is the area of usefulness still left vacant, The 
which the Sunday School of the future should be ready to K^^^^"^^ 
occupy? How does the new provision which has under future. 
the Education Act become so abundant and so effective 
modify or how far ought it to modify our views as to 
the true scope and object of the Sunday School? The 
answer to this question is not easy. But it suggests to 
us other enquiries, and some considerations which bear 
in a very real though at first sight not an obvious sense 
upon its solution. 

Why is it that among all Christian communities the The 
recognition of the first day of the week as a time of rest^'^''^ J^^^ 
is so much valued? Why and in what manner do we zV^ 
feel it to be precious to ourselves? Of course in the first /^'^/^■^^• 
place it is an opportunity for religious edification and 
worship. But that is not the whole. Sunday changes 
the current of our thoughts, releases us for a few hours 
from the ordinary routine of the week, from our business 
or profession, and breaks the continuity of that eager, 
fretful, and anxious struggle which occupies our minds in 
politics, in industry, and in society during the rest of the 
week. It gives us leisure for reading, for thinking, and 
for happy family intercourse. It is a standing symbol to 
us all of the fact that the 'life is more than meat,' that 
the higher life has its own claims, that rest, refreshment, 
change of intellectual employment, are among the neces- 
saries of that life. 

Now it is in the light of our own experience that we The work- 
are best able to judge, what the Sunday ought to be to Sunday. 
children, and especially to the families of those who 

2B 



370 1 Jie Sunday School of tJie Future 

belong to the industrial classes. We do not spend the 
whole of our own Sunday in listening to religious instruc- 
tion, nor have we any reason to suppose that others are 
in this respect different from ourselves. 

If we try to picture the ideal Sunday for a working 
man and his household, we should consider how he is 
engaged during the rest of the week in labour which 
begins early in the day, and that he often returns home 
after his children have gone to sleep. Except on Sunday, 
he scarcely sees his family, or has much opportunity of 
talking to them. Then when the day comes, the happiest 
thing we could desire both for him and his children is 
that he should take the elder ones with him to a place 
of worship, should sit down with them in the afternoon, 
and ask them what they are doing at school, should hear 
them repeat to him the hymns or lessons they have 
learned, and then talk to them, and encourage them to 
talk in their turn. He may ask the eldest to read some 
short story aloud to the rest; or if the day be fine can 
take them with him for a walk and talk by the way. 
Does any one of us doubt, that in the strengthening of 
family affection, in its influence on the characters of the 
father and mother by drawing out some of their best 
qualities, and in the enduring memories which will help 
to form the children's character and habits for life, a 
Sunday thus spent is far more precious than if passed 
among strangers, however skilful their theological in- 
struction may be. Let us acknowledge once for all that 
even the best Sunday School is but a substitute, and a 
very poor substitute, for the ennobling influence of an 
orderly Christian home. The sympathetic interest of 
the father and mother in the children's lessons, in their 
thoughts, and in their progress, though it be not the 
interest of skilled or professional teachers, is far more 



Home influence 371 



influential in the development of the religious character, 
than all the formal lessons of any school however good. 
And in so far as the existence of Sunday Schools has 
given to many parents, who are quite capable of exer- 
cising such influence, an excuse for evading their own 
responsibilities and handing them over to others, there 
is no doubt in my mind that the multiplication of such 
schools has done harm as well as good. It seems a 
hard saying in this audience; but in just the proportion 
in which we can obtain the co-operation of parents in 
the religious nurture of their children, we may be well 
content in the next century to see the need for Sunday 
Schools steadily diminish. 

Let us begin therefore by recognizing the superior Home 
claims and sacredness of the home life ; and by a deter- '"T'"'?"'^^ 
mination to do nothing which will interfere with the potent 
legitimate function of the parent and the family, con- ''t'^" ^^'^^ 

° ^ 0/ any 

sidered as instruments of education, in the best and school. 
truest sense. It is very easy for those of us who are 
interested in a society or an institution which has done 
great service, to over-estimate it, and to become so 
enamoured with a particular form of machinery, that we 
lose sight of the purpose which the machine is meant to 
fulfil. But we must beware of mistaking means for ends. 
It is a mistake to become so proud of the extension of 
our Sunday School system, as to think it a high triumph 
to record the addition of thousands to the roll of scholars 
year by year. It would be a much higher triumph if we 
were able to record that the number of instructed parents 
and of God-fearing households, among the working 
classes, had so increased that the Sunday School was 
becoming a superfluous institution. But unfortunately 
we are a long way from this goal. The ideal household 
such as I have described is not always possible. The 



372 The Sunday School of the Fittiire 

children of idle, negligent, and ignorant parents, who 
are simply glad to be rid of an encumbrance on Sunday 
afternoons, are still to be found and are likely to be 
found for a long time to come. For these the Sunday 
" School is a beneficent institution, and for them it is our 
duty to make the Sunday School as efficient for its 
purpose as we can. 
Sunday in But in trying to do this, we shall do well to fashion 
our own ^^^ course of procedure, in view of the fact that the 
school is rather the imperfect substitute for the home, 
than a supplement, or even a substitute for the day 
school. We should not like, in the case of our own 
children, to fill their Sunday leisure with lessons or 
formal teaching. We prefer for their sake to get rid of 
the associations connected with the school and its 
discipline, and to place them within the reach of other 
influences calculated to awaken their sympathies, broaden 
their intellectual horizon, and encourage their aspirations 
after higher and better things than those which challenge 
their attention all through the rest of the week. With 
this view we do not encumber them with rigid rules 
as to what is or what is not permissible on the Sunday; 
we do not insist on a Puritanical identification of that 
day with the Jewish Sabbath; but we place within their 
reach books, pictures, employments, which though they 
are quite compatible with serious thought do not look 
didactic and forbidding, or challenge the children for 
more gravity than can reasonably be expected at their 
age. Nothing tends more to give to children a sense of 
unreality in religious lessons, than the habit of exacting 
from them professions of faith, or acts of worship, which do 
not honestly correspond to their present stage of religious 
experience. Above all, we try to establish in their 
minds happy associations with the day, so that they may 



Sunday m the home 373 

look back on it not as the time of restraint or of gloom 
but as the most interesting episode in the week, none 
the less but all the more delightful because of an over- 
hanging sense of seriousness and detachment, which dis- 
tinguishes the day's pursuits from those of ordinary life. 
A wise parent does not talk to children about the claims 
of Sunday, or the obligation of observing it. He rather 
seeks to let it be seen indirectly that such observance is 
to be regarded as a privilege and not as a duty. Indeed 
if it were not felt to be a privilege, we can hardly make 
children see how it can be a duty. 

George Herbert's verses well describe the ideal 
Sunday in a Christian household : — 

" O day most calm, most bright, 
The fruit of this, the next world's bud; 

The couch of time ; care's balm and bay ; 
The week were dark, but for thy light ; 
Thy torch doth shew the way. 

Thou art a day of mirth : 
And where the week-days trail on ground, 
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth : 
O let me take thee at the bound, 
Leaping with thee from seven to seven, 
Till that we both, being toss'd from earth, 

Fly hand in hand to heaven ! " ^ 

Now the more nearly we can approach this ideal in 
the Sunday School of the future the better. Of course 
there must be lessons and some formal teaching. But in 
view of the fact that lessons and formal teaching are 
accessible to the children all the rest of the week, I am 
inclined to think that we need less of them in the Sunday 
Schools of the future, and more of those civilizing and 
religious influences which though they operate indirectly 

1 The Temple. 



374 'The Sunday School of the Future 

The go farther in the formation of character. Foremost 

teaciei . ^mong these influences is that derived from the presence 
and the personal qualifications of the teacher himself. 
He or she should be a person of cultivated mind, one 
who reads much, and who knows the temptations which 
assail his scholars. His attainment and manners should 
be such as command respect, he should have a deep 
sense of the realities of religion and of its importance, and 
above all should have a genuine love for children, and 
faith in the boundless possibilities of good, which lie 
more or less hidden, even in the dullest and least 
interesting scholar in his class. He derives great in- 
fluence from the fact that he is not a paid or professional 
teacher, but is drawn to the children simply by good will 
and a desire to be useful to them. His attitude to the 
children should be less that of an instructor or a lecturer, 
than that of a friend and companion. Given these 
conditions, and you may be sure that the mere contact 
with such a person for an hour or two in the week will 
do much to raise the tone of the scholars, to awaken in 
them feelings of loyalty and personal affection, and to 
produce unconsciously a sentiment of reverence for the 
religion of which the teacher is for the time the principal 
exponent and representative. Since the classes in a 
Sunday School are small there is the possibility of a 
closer intellectual intimacy between teacher and taught 
than is possible in a day school, and the character of 
individual scholars can be better studied. 
Conversa- In such a class, conversation is one of the most 
^^^^' effective instruments of culture To sit "a passive bucket 

to be pumped into," as Carlyle said, is not an ex- 
hilarating process, nor, it must be added, a very useful 
one. The story of great teachers from Socrates down to 
Arnold and Thring, and even that of the 'Pastor 



Reading aloud 375 



Pastorum ' our great Teacher and Master, shows us how 
much is done by conversation, by inviting the pupil to 
express his thought, to state his difficulties, and to take a 
share in thinking out the subject for himself. How often 
our Lord abandoned altogether the didactic and impera- 
tive method, so dear to all merely mechanical instructors, 
and became conversational and suggestive. *' What think 
you? How readest thou?"^ The true measure of our 
success in teaching religion, as in the teaching of every- 
thing else, is not to be found in the number of facts and 
truths which the scholar has received and learned on our 
authority; but in the degree in which the teaching has 
called out power, mental activity, and sympathy on the 
part of the scholar himself. 

A part of each Sunday's schooltime might well h^ Reading 
devoted to a reading of some story, or poem, some '^ ' 
episode from history or some new fact in the annals of 
our own time; and then to a conversation — not neces- 
sarily an examination — upon it. To make this exercise 
really helpful and inspiring it is very necessary that the 
teacher should in his own reading, whether in books 
or newspapers, keep his eyes open and make a note of 
any incident or anecdote which is likely to interest the 
children and to set them thinking. There should be a 
moral meaning — an element of religious edification in it. 
But this meaning need not be obtrusive. It should be 
there, held in solution so to speak, and left to make its 
own impression. We are to remember that the best 
lessons of our life do not always come to us in the form 
of lessons; and that all knowledge does not necessarily 
assume the shape of knowledge. A second requisite 
is that the teacher should himself acquire the art of 

1 An^e, pp. ss, 44. 



376 The Sunday School of the Fj it tire 

reading. Children enjoy listening to reading, if the reader 
knows his art, and can give in a pleasing dramatic yet 
not theatrical way, the meaning of a story. Of course 
we can all read; but the power to read with such dis- 
tinctness and intelligence that no syllable and no part of 
the meaning of the writer fails to be communicated, and 
that there is an added charm in the expression which 
delights the hearer, is a very rare power indeed. It may 
be acquired by anyone who thinks it worth acquiring, 
and when acquired it will add greatly to the usefulness 
of the Sunday School teacher. You want to give the 
children pleasant associations with the thought of books, 
and an appetite for reading and personal cultivation when 
they are at home. So the books you have read, the 
narrative of a war, examples of valour and self-devotion, 
the holiday journey you have lately taken, may all in turn 
be made the subject of a friendly and easy conversational 
lesson and the means of encouraging the children to talk 
in their turn. Often the scholars in an elder class may be 
asked to give their own account of any book they have 
read, or any new experience they have gained. They m ight 
be shown pictures of Bible scenes, of historical incidents, 
and of domestic life, and asked if they could construct or 
tell the story which the picture illustrates. They might 
be invited to write an occasional letter, not as a school 
exercise to be examined and marked as for competition, 
but mainly as a means for cultivating reflection, winning 
and promoting confidence, and enabling the teacher to 
know better the individual character of his scholars. 

Do not let us hamper ourselves with theories as to 
which of all these devices is likely to be most instruc- 
tive. Try them alio Make experiments. Discover what 
it is that interests the scholars, and then use it and 
make the most of it. For that, after all, is the best and 



The ScJi 00 1 L ib j'a ry 377 



the fullest of promise, which the young people like and 
enjoy most. 

Then there is the School Library. The teacher The 
should know something of its contents, and be able to iW^y^-^^.y 
advise the scholars especially in the upper classes as to 
what books they should choose, not necessarily goody 
nor even what are especially called religious books, but 
books such as he himself has read with profit and 
enjoyment. And the scholars who have read a library 
book might well be asked to talk of it and to say whether 
and why they liked it. Among the scholars also there 
will be many who will soon be leaving you, and in whose 
future you are interested. It is well therefore to ac- 
quaint yourself with the Continuation schools, the Young 
Men's Christian Association, or the Bible Class, the 
Polytechnics, or the Home Reading circles, or other 
institutions in the neighbourhood, in order that you may 
be in a position to give opportune advice to promising 
and thoughtful scholars. And if you encourage them 
after leaving the school to write to you and tell you what 
they are doing, you forge a new link of sympathy between 
them and yourself. Nothing is more likely to prove a 
moral safeguard to young people, just entering into 
the world, than the knowledge that they have one friend 
in a superior position to their own, a friend who will be 
glad of their successes, and will be pained to hear of any 
misconduct. And the poorer and less fortunate in their 
surroundings the scholars are, the more valuable will such 
a safeguard become. 

It may be said that all this is not the business of a 
school. Then we should try to enlarge our conception 
of what the business of a school is and might be, 
especially of one held on Sunday. Let us ask ourselves 
what we should like to talk about to our own children on 



3/8 The Sunday School of the Future 

Sunday at home. And thus we shall be led to admit 
that our talk would not be all about theology; and that 
anything which enlarged the range of their ideas, gave 
them new intellectual resources, gave them a heightened 
interest in the richness and beauty of the world, in the 
lives and doings of heroes and saints, and helped to 
introduce them into the society of great writers, would 
seem to us to be a legitimate part of the Sunday occupa- 
tion. But all this comes of free unrestrained intellectual 
intercourse between parent and child ; and it is precisely 
to that kind of intercourse that we should desire, as far 
as circumstances will allow, that the relation of teacher 
and scholar in the Sunday School should be assimilated. 
Religious But while I desire to emphasize the importance of 

Hon. ' those features of Sunday School work which differentiate 
it from the work of an ordinary school; and while I 
should like to introduce any employments which serve to 
bring the young people into closer sympathy with culti- 
vated persons, and to promote a real interchange of 
thought and experience between them, we may not forget 
that after all the chief raisoii d'etre of a Sunday School in 
the minds of most persons is that it should be a place of 
religious instruction. Now, viewed in this aspect, there 
is much to be learned from the experience of good day 
schools; and it is worth while to consider in what 
respects that experience should furnish hints and guidance 
to the voluntary and unprofessional teachers who under- 
take the charge of our Sunday scholars. 
A teacher''s And the first of the facts which such experience brings 
/ ^^^ • before us, is that this business of teaching is not an easy 
one, — not one to be undertaken without previous thought 
and preparation, or merely in a kindly amateurish spirit. 
Teaching is a fine art. It has its rules and principles. 
There are right ways and wrong ways of beginning and 



The teachei' s equipment 379 

ending a lesson, of awakening interest, of putting ques- 
tions, of recapitulation, of finding the nearest avenue to 
the understanding, the conscience, and the sympathy of 
children of different ages; and there are reasons to be 
given why some ways are right and others wrong. In 
our public schools, whether primary or secondary, 
we are becoming more and more convinced that some 
knowledge of these things is indispensable and makes 
all the difference between the skilled and the unskilled 
practitioner in his art. The best educational literature, 
the lives of great teachers, the records of their successes 
and their failures, and some acquaintance with the laws 
of mind, the growth of the mental faculties, the conditions 
on which memory, the reasoning power, and the appetite 
for knowledge can best be cultivated, are all included in 
the course of professional instruction laid down in our 
training colleges, and in the requirements of the l^niver- 
sities for the diploma of competency as a teacher. It would 
be an unreasonable burden to lay upon the kindly Chris- 
tian men and women who now undertake Sunday School 
work, if anyone insisted on their becoming systematic 
students in this sense. Moreover, any attempt to make 
an examination in the philosophy or methods of educa- 
tion, a condition of becoming recognized as a qualified 
Sunday School teacher, would exclude from the ranks 
many of the most valuable of our workers, — men and 
w^omen qualified by personal cultivation, by religious 
conviction, by insight into child-nature, and by a love for 
children, to exercise in a high degree that kind of indi- 
rect influence to which as we have said more importance 
should be attached than to actual formal teaching. But 
we cannot hope to secure this kind of influence if we are 
satisfied to fill the teachers' chairs with persons, who 
in age, refinement, or social position are only a little 



3 8o TJic Simday ScJiool of tJic Future 

removed from the class to which the scholars belong. 
Nevertheless it is safer to say to all teachers, however 
they maybe equipped in other ways, that they will become 
still better fitted to discharge their duties, if they will 
when opportunity occurs acquaint themselves with some 
of the best books which have been written on the theory 
and practice of teaching. 
Need of One of the first particulars in which the trained is 

tion^' distinguished from the untrained teacher, is that he does 
not attempt to give an unpremeditated lesson. He thinks 
out the whole of it beforehand, tries to anticipate the 
difficulties which may arise as the lesson proceeds, 
brings together such illustrations, visible or merely oral, 
as are likely to be useful, determines how long the lesson 
ought to be, and makes up his mind not to attempt more 
than can be properly dealt with in the time. It is from 
this point of view that we value the schemes of systematic 
Bible lessons which are published periodically by the two 
great Societies — the Sunday School Union and the 
Church of England Sunday School Union. Those lessons 
are consecutive, they are properly linked together, and 
they are a check upon desultoriness. Nevertheless, it is 
not well to be enslaved by them or to follow them too 
rigidly. Occasions often arise when it is well to depart 
from the prescribed programme, and when some other 
subject is more appropriate and more useful. But at any 
rate the formal lesson if given should be well rehearsed 
in advance. The main test of a lesson is the interest 
excited on the part of the scholars, and unless they are 
interested the lesson is a failure. The skilled teacher 
knows, too, that the needful interest is never aroused 
unless the scholar is made to think, nor unless his facul- 
ties are set to work and required to do something. Half 
the lessons which it was once my business to hear from 



Qiiestionijig 381 

students in the Training College erred in attempting to 
do too much, and in leaving no room, first for a few- 
preparatory questions to ascertain what the children 
already knew on the subject, and to find what basis there 
was on which to build the lesson; and next for due recapi- 
tulation and for bringing the lesson to such a point, that 
it left a coherent and definite impression on the memory. 
And if this is true in secular teaching, it is still more 
true in moral and religious instruction. A lesson is a 
good one if it enforces and illustrates some single 
cardinal truth. It is a bad one if it attempts to enforce 
more facts or truths than can reasonably be held together 
in the mind, or than have unity or cohesion of their own. 
To an inexperienced teacher the easiest and most obvious 
way of communicating knowledge is to preach. But of 
all methods, this is the least effective to young children. 
Be sure once for all that preaching in a class is not 
teaching. 

Again, it is one of the most familiar results of experi- Question- 
ence in good schools that the exercise of questioning is'''"^' 
of little or no value, so long as the answers consist of 
single words only. It is very easy to supply by mere 
knack or by watching the suggestions of a teacher, a 
single word which he asks for, without knowing anything 
of the sentence of which that word forms a part. And 
questions which require no reply but 'yes ' and *no,' are 
not in fact questions at all.-^ The answer is purely 
mechanical; the tone in which you put the question 
shows what you expect, and when you have got it, you 
have got what is of little value. For acquiescence is not 
knowledge. It is not even belief. A good child will 
assent to any propositions you bring before him. But 
his mere assent means nothing, and is w^orth nothing. 

^ Lectures on Teaching, Chapter VI. 



382 TJie Sunday School of the Future 



Hence the practice of the best American teachers, who 
always insist on receiving whole sentences for answers. 
Verbal Another inference which may be usefully drawn from 

memory. ^^ experience of good secular teachers is that there is a 
great difference between good and bad methods of culti- 
vating the verbal memory. Among those who are not 
familiar with the science of education, nothing seems a 
more obvious method of teaching than to tell the pupil to 
learn something out of a book and then come up to " say his 
lesson." Now of course memory is a faculty which needs 
to be cultivated; but there is a great deal of difi'erence 
between remembering the substance of what is taught, and 
remembering one particular form of words, in which that 
substance is expressed. What we want most is that the 
truth, or the argument, or the fact which we value shall 
be understood, so that the pupil shall be led to think 
about it, and to make it his own, and to be helped to 
express it in his own words. Learning by heart a formula 
of words may easily become a substitute for thinking and 
not a help to it. The only formulary of words in the 
New Testament is a formulary of devotion, not of belief. 
There is no compendium of definite propositions, analo- 
gous to our Creed, set forth in Scripture by authority and 
required as a condition of membership in the Christian 
Church. We are therefore free to ask ourselves, in the 
light of experience, what is the share that mere memory 
lessons, the learning by heart of particular words, ought 
to take in Christian education? And I think the 
answer is clear. -^ When the object of the teacher is to 
explain a truth or doctrine, to picture out a scene or an 
event, or to enforce a moral lesson, he does well to pre- 
sent the lesson under several aspects, to illustrate it in 
different ways, and to ask to have it reproduced in the 

1 Lectures on Teaching, Chapter V. p. 138. 



Forutiilaries 383 



scholar's own language. But when a truth is expressed 
in the most concise and clear language of which it is 
capable, when the words are, so to speak, consecrated 
by long usage, and by great authority, or when there is 
beauty of form and expression, which makes it fall 
pleasantly on the ear, and linger lovingly in our after 
recollections, then the verbal memory may very wisely 
be appealed to. These conditions are fulfilled, for 
example, by many passages of Scripture; but in selecting 
these for repetition, we should choose only those which 
are short and which embody in them some one precept 
or idea, in the clearest and most telling form. So also 
good hymns and religious poetry have real value in the 
religious culture of the young. But in selecting verses 
for repetition, it is well to take only those which are 
really poetry; where the imagery is of a kind likely to 
appeal both to the understanding and to the taste; and 
where the author has not been anxious to pack as much 
theology as he can into his verse. It is the proper ofhce 
of religious poetry to purify the religious emotions, to 
exalt and broaden the imagination, and to touch the heart. 
It is not the chief function of such poetry to teach 
doctrinal truth at all. Following our Lord's own precept, 
we do well to commit to memory forms of prayer, and 
for this purpose the practice in most Sunday Schools of 
learning by heart the Collect for each Sunday is worthy 
of universal adoption. For besides their conciseness and 
the devout aspiration after holiness which they embody, 
many of the collects in the Prayer Book are distinguished 
by singular grace of literary expression, which adds much 
to their beauty, and to their chance of being permanently 
fixed in the memory. 

I am afraid that some of you will think me a heretic, Formu- 
when I repeat here what I have often said before, that I ^'■^^"^^^' 



384 TJie Snnday School of the Fjitttre 

attach small value to catechisms, as educational instru- 
ments. We never employ them in teaching any other 
subject than religion.^ And the reasons are obvious. 
There are stereotyped questions and stereotyped answers, 
both in a fixed and unalterable form of words. They 
leave no room for the play of intelligence upon and 
around the subject, or for the suggestion and removal of 
difBculties. They stand between the giver and the re- 
ceiver of knowledge and do not help either of them much. 
They rather keep them apart than bring them together. 
They furnish to all unskilful teachers an excuse for not 
taking the trouble to frame questions of their own. More- 
over a printed question and its answer taken together 
form a statement, either of doctrine or of fact; but either 
the question or the answer by itself is only half of that 
statement. And we ask our children to learn the answ^er, 
without learning the question. Thus the passage com- 
mitted to memory is incomplete and often unintelligible. 
Here again I would fain appeal to your own experience. 
We are all tempted to fall back on mechanical methods, 
on verbalism, and on set lessons. They are all so much 
easier than real exercises of thought. But, as a matter of 
fact, do you, or would you if you did not happen to be 
teachers, find that the fragmentary answers which you 
learned in the Catechism abide in your memory, and 
help you much in your religious life? On the other 
hand, what hymns, texts, and verses are they which have 
become, as years went on, substantial and permanent 
factors in the formation of your character, in solacing you 
in hours of weakness, in helping your devotions, and in 
inspiring your life? It is to this test that we ought 
oftener to bring our own theories as to what should and 
what should not be learned by heart in a Sunday School. 

^ Ante, p. 362. 



Catechising in CJiiirck 385 

Let us ask ourselves honestly the questions : — Was I 
aided much in the formation of my religious convictions, 
by being called upon in youth to stand up and af^rm a 
number of theological propositions which I only im- 
perfectly understood? When religious truths came home 
to my intelligence or my conscience as a child, did they 
come more effectively as abstract statements of truth, or 
in the form of concrete examples? When I look back 
on the work of my own religious instructors, do I find 
that I learned most from their formal lessons, or from 
the influence of their character and their sympathy, the 
near contact established between their mature and my 
immature intelligence, and the affectionate interest they 
showed in my spiritual welfare? The replies to these 
questions will be found most instructive to those who 
hope to succeed as Sunday School teachers. 

The ancient and edifying practice of catechising Catechis- 
publicly in the church on Sunday afternoons has fallen ^l]f^^]^J^ 
in many places into practical disuse. Yet the injunctions 
of the Church of England are unmistakeable. And you 
will observe that the rubric does not content itself with 
the saying of the Catechism, but desires the Curate 
"openly to instruct and examine the children in some 
parts of the Catechism." That is to say, he shall take 
the Catechism, and make it the basis of explanation 
and of such further questioning as may be necessary 
to make its meaning clear and effective. No series of 
good questions can ever be predetermined. There must 
be room for a reasonable amount of discursiveness, for 
'give and take,' for dealing with unexpected difficulties, 
for letting the new question grow out of the preceding 
answer; and all this is clearly contemplated by the 
requirements of the Prayer Book, which would certainly 
not be satisfied by treating the Catechism as a memory 

2C 



386 The Sunday School of the Future 



Work 
for the 

educated 
laily. 



lesson only, and learning by heart printed answers to 
printed questions. Catechisms and formularies of faith 
are only valuable when used for the purpose of showing 
the points to be aimed at, and the fixed truths round 
which explanations and spontaneous questions may 
cluster. But they must not be regarded as self-contained 
and complete educational instruments. 

We may suspect that the real reason why the rubric 
on this point is so generally disregarded by the clergy, is 
the undoubted difficulty of the task. To conduct such 
an exercise well requires exceptional skill, mental alacrity, 
fertility of illustration, promptitude in dealing with un- 
expected answers, and building new questions upon them, 
tact in seizing upon incidents in the public life of the 
nation, or in the narrower life of the school and the 
children's homes, in order to show the working out into 
practice of Christian principles. And thus it comes to pass 
that the exercise is a hard one for the man who conducts 
it. I suppose, though I have not tried, that it is rather 
harder than preaching a sermon. Yet it is one of 
the best instruments for Christian edification which the 
Church possesses. Let me frankly own to a wish that 
some of the zeal shewn by the younger clergy, in the 
multiplication of Eucharisticand other services for adults, 
could be diverted into this channel and made to tell on 
the younger members of their flock. No doubt this 
means more careful preparation and greater intellectual 
effort than is called for in ordinary clerical routine, but 
the effort is worth making and would be richly repaid. 
We must confess however that this effort is made less 
frequently than could be desired. 

There is therefore all the more room for the educated 
laity to take a substantial share in this most necessary 
work. And to some of those whose piety, refinement, 



Attendance at public worsJiip 387 

and personal qualities will be of the highest service, 
the work will certainly prove no less attractive, because 
there is no visible honour nor profit to be gained from 
it, because there is no notoriety or distinction associated 
with it — nothing to give you assurance of success except 
the kindling eye and the glowing cheek of the little 
child who receives a new truth, or becomes conscious 
of a new power. For the results of the teaching are 
not tested by examiners, or made the subjects of official 
inspection or other public recognition. The work is 
done in a comparatively obscure and unnoticed region, 
in which personal influence is silently exercised and in 
which Christian endeavour is its own reward. 

Children's services have been introduced very wisely Children's 
and with excellent effect into many churches. The con- •^^^"^^^^■^• 
dition of their effectiveness are that they shall be short, 
shall enlist from the first the co-operation of the children 
in singing and in prayer; and that the addresses or short 
sermons shall be less directed to the exposition of 
theological truths than to the awakening of the slumber- 
ing conscience, to the elucidation of our Lord's life and 
teaching, to the poetry and the dramatic incidents of Bible 
story, and to the application of Christian truths to the 
conduct and daily life of the child. Above all a children's 
service should excite interest, and give to them bright and 
happy associations with the act of public worship. 

Here is one test by which the efficiency of our Sunday Formation 
Schools may fairly be measured and from which ouryy^'^^,. 
teachers ought not to shrink. Do the scholars in our attending 
Sunday Schools afterwards become attached to the^^'^^^'f., 

■' _ wors/np. 

Church which has instructed them; and when they are. 
free, do they voluntarily attend her services? Unless 
they do, there is something defective in the methods we 
adopt, or in the influence we exert. Now let us be quite 



388 TJie Sunday School of the Future 

candid with ourselves on this point. Considered as an 
instrument for attaching children to Christian churches 
and interesting them permanently in public worship, the 
Sunday School of the past has proved to be a failure. 
I once met a young workman in whom I had felt some 
interest, and asked him among other things whether he 
attended a place of worship on Sunday. "O Sir," he 
replied, " I have left school now." You see he associated 
the act of going to church with part of the school disci- 
pline. Perhaps he had been required to sit with others 
in a gallery, and look good, during a long service which 
was not well suited for him, and which he felt to be 
wearisome. At any rate, he had failed to acquire a liking 
for public worship, and to that extent his early school 
training had proved unavailing to fulfil one of its chief 
objects, to introduce him into the Christian Church, and to 
make him desire and value its privileges. What those 
privileges are and what they are worth, will become 
clearer to him, in proportion as public worship is made 
interesting and attractive, and is not enjoined by 
authority as a matter of obligation. 
Theologi- And with regard to that part of your own teaching 

which is specially religious or theological, it is well to 
keep ever in view the fact that you cannot hope to convey 
into the minds of young children convictions stronger 
than your own, or even as strong as your own. If there 
be Bible stories, about the historic truth or the ethical 
value of which you have any private misgivings, do not 
attempt to teach them. The plea often urged that chil- 
dren should be asked to believe more than adults believe; 
that it is good for them at first to accept the traditional 
orthodoxy, even though in after life when the critical 
faculty is duly awakened, their views will be corrected, 
is not one which will bear the test of practical experience, 



cat teach 
ing. 



TJieological teaching 389 

nor indeed is it quite defensible from the point of view 
of Ctiristian honesty. So if your own knowledge of 
science or history makes it difficult for you to accept 
literally the truth of any details of the Scripture narrative, 
or to see clearly its moral significance, it is wise to 
confine your lessons to those portions of the Bible about 
which you have no difficulties, and which you have felt 
to be of most value in the formation of your own spiritual 
life. The field thus open to you is still very wide. There 
are stories and parables, poetry and devotion, the narra- 
tive of a Saviour's life and teaching, the deeds of heroes, 
and the utterances of prophets. If we can teach these 
things well, and if we find that the teaching of them 
interests ourselves as well as the scholars, we may be well 
content to make such topics the staple of our religious 
instruction. But if we cannot teach doctrines ex animo 
and with the full consent both of our intelligence and of 
our hearts, it is better not to attempt to teach them. 
It is above all things necessary that we should observe 
perfect candour towards the children, and not ask their 
acceptance of statements of truth which we expect them 
to unlearn when they grow up. On this point let me 
commend to you the weighty words of a late American 
prelate : — 

"There is a class of books and teachers — the ordinary Sunday 
School teacher is often of that sort — who, it seems to me, does very 
much, partly from timidity, partly from laziness, partly from sensa- 
tionalism, to keep a certain unreality and insincerity in the religious 
teaching of the young. Everywhere but in religion — in history, in 
science — each new and truer view, as soon as it is once established, 
passes instantly into the school books of the land. Am I not right 
in saying that there are great convictions about Scripture and the 
Christian faith which are heartily accepted by the great mass of 
tliinking Christian people now which are not being taught to the 
children of to-day ? If that is so, as I fear it is, then this new 



390 TJie Sunday School of the Future 

generation has got to fight over again the battle that our generation 
has fought, and fight it too less hopefully, because there will have 
been less of sincerity in its education. It is always a better and 
safer process to outgrow a doctrine that we have been sincerely 
taught, than to abandon one that had no real hold upon our teacher's 
mind. In the first case we keep much of the sincerity, even if we 
let the doctrine go. In the second case, when we let go the 
doctrine, there is nothing left. Is there not here the secret of much 
of the ineffective religious teaching of the young, of the way they 
cast our teaching off when they grow up ? No ! my dear friends, all 
of you anywhere who are called to teach, with larger faith in truth, 
with larger faith in God, with wise love for his children, I beg you 
to make truthfulness the first law of your teaching. Never tell a 
child that he must believe what you do not believe, nor teach him 
that he must go through any experience which you are not sure is 
necessary to his conversion and his Christian life." ^ 

So if much of the current teaching in our Sunday 
Schools has failed to interest children, let us try to find 
something that will interest them. We must remember 
that they need to be humanized, softened, and inspired, 
as well as taught; and that whatever will effect this 
purpose is within the legitimate province of a Sunday 
School. We are safe in resolving to give to them of our 
best — the best of our reading, of our thinking, and of our 
experience in life — so long as it is fitted for their age and 
can be made to tell on their taste and character; whether 
it is set down in a scheme of formal lessons or not. 
And as to our very natural wish to make good Church- 
men as well as good and intelligent Christians, I think the 
less prominently we set that before us as the end to be 
attained the better. Be sure that the indirect influence 
of your character and sympathy will do more to attract 
your scholars to the Christian community with which 
you are identified, than any amount of controversial 

1 Bishop Phillips Brooks of Massachusetts. 



stons. 



General Conclusions 391 

teaching consciously designed to combat heterodoxy or 
to strengthen particular denominational interests. 

The conclusions to which I have sought to lead this General 
audience, among whom I know there are very many*^^^^^"' 
devoted teachers in Church Sunday Schools, may be thus 
briefly recapitulated : — 

(i) That the general diffusion of elementary educa- 
tion has profoundly altered the character of the whole 
problem, and diminished the force of some of the argu- 
ments which led to the establishment of Sunday Schools 
a century ago. 

(2) That in proportion to the increase of orderly and 
God-fearing homes among the people, and to advancing 
intelligence and sense of responsibility among parents, we 
might be well content to see the need for Sunday Schools 
gradually disappear. 

(3) That meanwhile it should be the ofifice of the 
Sunday School to act as a substitute — even though an 
imperfect one — for a Christian home, rather than as a 
supplement to the day school. 

(4) That, since religious instruction must always be 
a part of the work of Sunday Schools, the methods of 
instruction in them should be revised and improved. In 
so far as they are schools, efforts should be directed to 
make them good schools, and to adopt the best known 
devices by which interest is excited and order secured by 
skilled teachers in good secular schools. 

(5) That so long as distinctive religious instruction 
can be effectively given, it may rightly claim to form the 
staple of a Sunday School teacher's work. But that if it 
is not done well, and if the teacher has not the gift of 
inspiring children with a liking for it, he should not 
disdain to seek other means of stirring their consciences 
and attracting their sympathetic attention. 



392 TJie Sunday School of the Ftititre 



(6) For after all, a Sunday School is not only 
a place for formal religious teaching, but also a con- 
trivance for exercising personal influence and of bringing 
the young into nearer relations with some one who lives 
habitually on a higher plane than their own, and who yet 
can without any show of condescension put himself or 
herself into the position of a friend and counsellor, in- 
terested not only in the school and the Church, but in 
the relation of both to the home, and to the conduct and 
future prospects of the scholar. 

(7) Hence it is expedient that one portion of the 
Sunday afternoon's meeting should be employed in read- 
ing and conversation, not necessarily wdth a didactic 
purpose, but with a view to open the mind, and to form 
the love of reading, and to awaken an interest in intel- 
lectual pursuits. And in the selection of topics it is well 
that the teacher should not hamper himself with any 
formal rules, but should follow to some extent his own 
tastes and preferences. That which has enriched his own 
thoughts most, and in which he feels the strongest 
interest is probably that on which he can talk to his 
scholars most effectively, and in which he is most likely 
to kindle in them a responsive interest. 

The There are among those who hear me, some who have 

Sunday serious misgivinsjs lest in thus widening the area of 
School not 00 o 

only a Sunday School work, they should be departing from the 
place for purely religious purpose wTiich has hitherto been under- 

reii^ious 

instriic- stood to control that work. But such persons will do 
tion, but ^^^\\ ^Q consider how very imperfectly even that purpose 

also a 

centre of has hitherto been fulfilled, and how little it is likely to 
civiliza- \^Q fulfilled, so long as special religious edification or the 

tlOn and . r r^^ ^ 1 • • i i , • 

social promotion of Churchmanship is regarded as something 
improve- apart from the general character and life of the child, 

1!l£Jtt, 

and as constituting the sole business of the first day of 
the week. They will also recognize the truth that after 



General Conclusions 393 

all, intellectual culture is closely akin to religion and is 
indeed part of it. When this is considered, it will be 
seen that the Sunday School of the future can occupy a 
place in our system of public education, which the public 
elementary school can never fill; because its teaching 
is less formal, more intimate, more inspiring, and can 
connect itself more closely with the personal character 
and daily life of the individual scholar. 

Every institution which has the secret of true life in 
it, has in it possibilities of adapting itself to new con- 
ditions; and its right to survive depends largely on the 
degree in which these possibilities are understood and 
utilized. Here then is part of the task which lies before 
the Sunday School teachers of the next century. But it 
demands from them some freshness of mind, and some 
freedom from traditional ideals and methods, in order 
that the work may be well done. "The harvest truly is 
great but the labourers " — the skilled, earnest, and sym- 
pathetic labourers "are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord 
of the harvest, that he may send forth " more of such 
"labourers into his harvest." 



LECTURE XIV 

WOMEN AND UNIVERSITIES ^ 

A notable feature in the reign of Queen Victoria. Opening of pro- 
fessions to women. Public employments. Higher education. 
Women's education not provided by ancient endowments. 
Defoe's protest. Recent reforms. Why so slowly effected. 
The Schools' Inquiry Commission. Ancient endowments made 
available to girls. The Universities' Local Examinations. 
Girls' Public Day Schools. Social effects of this movement. 
The University of London. Provincial Colleges of University 
rank. The older Universities. Girton and Newnham. Health 
of students. A Women's University. The true intellectual 
requirements of women. The unused resources of life. 

A notable It is one of the most noteworthy facts in the annals 
{/I'e reitn^ ^^ the beneficent and memorable reign of our present 
of Queen Queen that in it there has been an unprecedented 
ittoia. (leygiopment in the intellectual influence and public 
usefulness of women. There is peculiar appropriateness 
in the circumstance that the most renowned of female 
Sovereigns should have been able to witness this deve- 
lopment and to associate it, in a very special sense, with 
the history of her long reign. 
Professions There are several aspects under which this social 

-^^^ revolution — for it is little short of a revolution — may be 

women. ■' 

1 Reprinted, with additions, from the Contemporary Reviexv. 

394 



Pj'ofessional employments for ivome7i 395 

viewed. Much has been done to open out new industrial 
careers which were heretofore closed to women. In 
the medical and literary professions, in engraving and 
decorative art, in clerkships in the Post Office and other 
departments of the public service, at the Royal Academy, 
as book-keepers, journalists, type- and shorthand-writers, 
secretaries, as skilled hospital nurses, and in other 
ways, women have of late been admitted to honour- 
able and comparatively lucrative employment. Fifty 
years ago, almost the only resource open to a girl 
who was above the rank of domestic servant, and who 
desired to earn her own living, was the profession of 
teaching. That profession accordingly became over- 
stocked with practitioners, many of whom had received 
no adequate preparation, and had evinced no aptitude 
for the work ; but relied mainly on their manners, and 
their ' genteel ' connexions to justify them in opening a 
' ladies' seminary ' and in soHciting the confidence of 
parents. Happily the ranks of the teacher's profession 
are being gradually cleared of these encumbrances, partly 
in consequence of the higher estimate which the public 
has at last learned to form of the necessary qualifications 
of a teacher, but mainly in consequence of the enlarged 
opportunities for interesting and appropriate employment 
which are now offered to women in other directions. 

Incidentally this enlargement of the range of profes- 
sional and industrial employment has had a valuable 
reflex effect on the social position as well as the self- 
respect and happiness of women themselves. When 
such employments were unattainable, or much restricted 
in number, women were sometimes tempted into undesir- 
able marriages, merely in order to secure a home and 
maintenance. There is now less danger in this direction, 
and many women, though they have no desire for a life 



39^ Women and Universities 

of independence, are nevertheless enabled, now that they 
have access to the means of earning a livelihood, to 
pause before making the most momentous decision of 
their lives, and to enquire more carefully into the char- 
acter and qualities of a suitor as well as his means and 
social position. Anything which makes it more difficult 
for an idle or vicious man to secure the hand of a good 
woman will have a useful influence on the standard both 
of morahty and intelligence among men themselves. 
Public em- 'Y\\q social and intellectual position of women has in 
' the nineteenth century been greatly modified by the large 
share of public and quasi-public duties which they liave 
been enabled to undertake. As trustees of endowed 
schools, as members of School Boards, as guardians of 
the poor, as pioneers and helpers in the organization of 
charity, ladies are now to be found in all parts of England 
rendering to the public priceless services which once 
would neither have been invoked nor appreciated, and 
which Fanny Burney or Jane Austen would have regarded 
as inappropriate, if not undignified. 

It is not easy, however, to escape from the trammels 
of long-established tradition, even when reason and 
experience call clearly for change. In many institutions, 
a compromise has been adopted by which a small com- 
mittee of ladies has been formed, to sit separately from 
the rest of the trustees and to make representations for 
the consideration of the real governing body composed 
of men only. Those representations are, however, often 
entirely ignored. A far better course is adopted when 
two or three women are elected to serve as members of 
the governing body itself, and are invested with the same 
full responsibility for the policy and working of the insti- 
tution, as that shared by the other Governors. The 
careful restriction in the duties of one section of a body 



Means of advanced edncation 397 

of trustees to a particular department of its work, 

deprives the sectional members of all real responsibility 

not only for their own special work but also for the 

efficiency of the institution as a whole. 

But a third and most important change — that in fact Means of 

which has served to make the other two to which I have ^^''^"^.^^ 

eaucanon. 

referred possible — is to be seen in the increased attention 
paid to the education of girls and women, and in the 
enlarged facilities which have, of late, been open for 
placing superior educational advantages within their reach. 
From the time of Lady Jane Grey down to Mrs Somer- 
ville and Miss Anna Svvanwick, numerous examples of 
erudite and accomplished women are to be found, bright- 
ening and variegating the history of learning in England. 
But the instances have been comparatively rare ; and 
when they have occurred they have been traceable to the 
exceptional opportunities enjoyed, here and there in a 
scholarly home, or in a literary coterie, and not to any very 
general recognition of the need of a sound education for 
women. Mrs Malaprop, who did not wish a daughter of 
hers to be a " progeny of learning," and whose artless de- 
scription of a gentlewoman's curriculum, while it excluded 
Greek, Hebrew, Mathematics, and the " like inflamma- 
tory branches of learning " extended as far as to a " super- 
cilious knowledge of accounts," to some " knowledge of 
the contagious countries," and above all to "orthodoxy," 
was not a bad representative of those who in the 
eighteenth century dominated the public opinion and set 
up the educational ideal in relation to girls. And this 
ideal, when attained, was sought by the help of domestic 
governesses, or in small sheltered boarding schools, ex- 
clusively composed of scholars of one social class, and not 
by means of any provision of a larger and freer kind, cor- 
responding in character to that provided for boys and men. 



39^ Women and Universities 

Women's Indeed, it cannot be safely said that an advanced 
education , . , . . . , 

not pro- o^ academic education for women was ever recognized 

vided by as a legitimate object of any of our ancient scholastic 
'l^udo-cv- foundations. There is no reason to suppose that at any 
ments in time the English Universities were attended by women. 
ngan . Y)\x>l\ traditions of female professors and pupils exist in 
connection with the Universities of Bologna and Padua, 
and in one or two of the Spanish Universities, but 
nothing analogous to these traditions is to be found in 
the records of Oxford and Cambridge. The fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries, as has been shewn, witnessed 
the foundation in England of most of the great Grammar 
Schools.^ The revival of learning and the dissolution of 
the ancient monasteries occurred almost simultaneously, 
the first served to create a new desire for classical educa- 
tion, and the second to provide the means for endowing 
it. But whether the great endowed schools were enriched 
by the spoils of older foundations, or provided by private 
munificence, their design in almost every case was to 
give to boys such instruction in Latin and Greek as would 
enable them to proceed to the Universities. The classical 
culture which was so generously provided by the first 
founders of the old Grammar Schools was offered to boys 
only. Their sisters were to have no share in it. They 
were not meant to proceed to a University, or to enter 
the learned professions or any public employment.^ 
Accordingly they were not to be encouraged to pursue 
the studies which were characteristic of a liberal educa- 
tion. They might, if their parents chose, obtain instruc- 
tion privately at home ; but of public provision, either 
in endowed schools or ecclesiastical foundations, there 
was none. In the long list of charitable endowments for 
the purpose of secondary education we can scarcely find 
1 Ante, p. 192. 2 /(^,v/, p, 241. 



Defoe's protest 399 

one which dehberately contemplated the admission of 
girls to the foundation, or which recognized any claim on 
their part to the letters and good learning so bountifully 
provided for their brothers. 

Some of the most valuable of these endowments owe 
their origin to the munificence of women. The bequest 
of Lady Betty Hastings, for instance, which provided a 
system of exhibitions for the encouragement in learning 
of the scholars in twelve of the northern schools, and 
which provided a singularly elastic and skilfully devised 
scheme of competitive examination, was carefully re- 
stricted to the boys of the three counties of Yorkshire, 
Cumberland, and Westmoreland. It never occurred to 
this wise and generous lady that children of her own sex 
might possibly be glad to avail themselves of a superior 
education, and be able to make a good use of it. But, 
on the other hand, the Charity Schools w^ere from the 
first open to boys and girls ahke. Girls might be wanted 
as domestic servants, and they were therefore permitted 
to learn the horn-book and the Catechism, to be dressed 
in the picturesque livery of the Charitable Grinders, and 
to sing hymns in the gallery at church. In so far as the 
education provided was that suited to domestics, and to 
the humbler offices of life, the daughters of the labouring 
class were permitted to share it. But nothing higher or 
more ambitious seems to have been ever contemplated 
by the founders of educational endowments. 

Nor can I find that this anomaly touched the cow- Defoe s 
science of any part of the community, or attracted any P''*^^^^^' 
public remonstrance, or even attention. One solitary 
voice — that of Daniel Defoe — was raised in 1697 in his 
pamphlet on the Education of Women. 

" I have often thought it one of the nmst barbarous customs in 
the world," he says, " considering us a civilized and a Christian 



400 Women and Universities 

country that we deny the advantages of learning to women. Their 
youth is spent to teach them to stitch and sew and to make baubles. 
They are taught to read, indeed, and perhaps to write their names 
or so, and that is the height of women's education. And I would 
but ask any who slight the sex for their understanding, what is a 
man good for that is taught no more ? " 

He goes on to speak strongly of the natural capacity 
of women, and of the rich return which would be reaped 
for any pains taken with their mental cultivation. 

" They should be taught," he says, " all sorts of breeding suitable 
to their age and quality." Especially he recommends the teaching 
of history, and wishes girls " so to read as to make them understand 
the world and judge of things when they hear of them. To such 
whose genius would lead them to it, I would deny no sort of learn- 
ing ; but the chief thing in general is to cultivate the understandings 
of the sex that they may be capable of all sorts of conversation ; that 
their parts and judgments being improved they may be as profitable 
in their conversation as they are pleasant." 

It need not be added that Defoe spoke to deaf 
ears, and that at least a century and a half had to elapse 
before his views met with any general acceptance or 
legislative recognition. 
Recent Thus when in 1867 the Schools Inquiry Commission 

reforms. ^^^^^^ j|-g elaborate investigation into the condition of 
Secondary Education in England ; and, in particular, 
into the history and condition of educational endowments, 
that body was fain to report that while in many of the 
later endowed schools which offered to the children of 
the labouring poor an education supposed to be suited 
to their condition^ scholars of both sexes were to be 
found, there was hardly a single endowed school in 
England which had been deliberately designed to offer 
even the rudiments of a liberal education to the sisters of 
the boys in Grammar Schools. As a fact no case could 

1 Ante, p. 192. 



Reform slowly efftxted 401 

be cited in which at the time of the inquiry an endowed 
foundation was actually affording to girls an education of 
a character higher than elementary. Christ's Hospital, 
the richest educational charity in the country, was indeed 
reported as one on which girls had an ancient and un- 
doubted claim ; but the share of revenue allotted to them 
had been in the opinion of the Commissioners, " unfairly 
reduced to a minimum." This is, to say the least, a very 
temperate and guarded inference from the simple fact that 
whereas there were then on the foundation 1,192 boys, of 
whom many were provided with an education adapted to 
prepare them for the Universities, there were eighteen girls 
at the Hertford establishment, all of whom were receiving 
the training and education suited to domestic servants. 

The truth is that so long as the founders of schools Why so 
regarded it as the main purpose of education to prepare J J y 
its possessor for a business or profession, it was not 
unreasonable that provision should be made for boys 
only. Girls were excluded from the opportunities of 
higher education, not by any conscious act of injustice, 
but simply /<?r iiicimafn, and because during many ages 
the need of advanced education was not present to the 
minds of English parents or the public. And if this great 
inequality is now to be redressed, recourse must not be 
had to the pious founder : he at least will do nothing to 
help us. We must rely on other and more modern con- 
siderations and experience.^ That human beings, whether 
men or women, come into the world not only to get a 
living but to live ; that the life they live depends largely 
on what they know and care about, upon the breadth of 
their intellectual sympathy, upon their love of truth, 
upon their power of influencing and inspiring other 
minds ; and that for these reasons mental culture stands 

1 Ante, p. 241. 

2D 



ston 



402 Wo7nen and Uiiiversities 

in just as close relation to the needs of a woman's career 
in the world as to that of a man — all these are propositions 
which, if not self-evident, are at least seen in a clearer 
light by the people of our generation than by their 
predecessors ; and it is on those who have arrived at 
such conclusions that there Hes the responsibihty of 
giving effect to them. 
The The Schools Inquiry Commission was the first public 

Inqinry ^ody boldly to give expression to these and the like 
Commis- beliefs. " We consider," says the Report, '' that in any 
enactment or constitution that may be brought into 
operation on this question, the principle of the full 
participation of girls in endowments should be broadly 
laid down." And they proceed to recommend in detail 
many plans for placing the means of a generous and 
scholarly education within the reach of girls. 

Those who would understand the nature of the pro- 
vision which existed a quarter of a century ago for the 
education of women, and would measure the remarkable 
progress which has since been made, would do well to 
unearth the volume containing the Report of the Schools 
Inquiry Commission, published in 1868, and to read in 
it the clear and striking chapter on girls' schools, con- 
tributed to the Report by the late Lord Lyttelton. 
That report, with its melancholy record of waste and 
negligence, of the paralysis with which many ancient 
foundations had been smitten, and of the inadequate 
and ill-organized provision which existed for intermediate 
and higher education in England, produced a profound 
impression on the public; and when in 1869 it became 
the duty of Mr Forster, as Vice-President of the Coun- 
cil, to introduce the Endowed Schools Act, he found 
no difficulty in persuading Parliament to assent to the 
introduction into that statute of the well-known twelfth 



Endozvineiits made available for girls 403 



section. " In framing schemes under this x^ct, provision 
shall be made, as far as conveniently may be, for extending 
to girls the benefits of endowments." 

The Commissioners to whom the administration oi Ancient 
the Act has been entrusted have sought with considerable ;;^^;;/^ 
success, though not with so great success as liad been ffi<^'^^ 
generally anticipated, to give effect to this enactment, f^y ^i^i^^ 
Local difficulties have, in many cases, proved formidable ; 
the number of scholastic foundations whose resources 
admitted of division without seriously impairing their 
usefulness was not found to be large ; but the lists 
presented by the Commissioners from year to year and 
in the Report of the Select Committee of the House of 
Commons on the Endowed Schools Act, shew that 
substantial work has been done. In London and its 
neighbourhood alone twenty-five endowed foundations 
have become available for girls' schools in which higher 
than elementary instruction is provided ; and the last 
Report shews that upwards of a hundred such schools 
have been established by means of the funds derived 
from old grammar-school endowments in different parts 
of the country. The report shews also that in many cases 
a liberal apportionment of the total revenue of many 
rich foundations has been made for this purpose. At 
Bedford, Birmingham, Exeter, Bristol, and Bradford, sec- 
ondary and higher schools have been founded. Schemes 
for the greater foundations, such as Christ's Hospital and 
St. Paul's, have all included in their scope, provision, 
either present or prospective, for the education of girls. 
And in many places in which the resources were in- 
sufficient for the actual estabhshment of new schools, 
the funds set aside for scholarships and exhibitions have 
been so distributed as to give substantial advantages in 
fair proportion to scholars of both sexes. 



404 Women and Universities 

The Utii- Concurrently with these reforms, all of which required 

^)P 7' K7 fl P\ 

local legal sanction, other movements on the part of public or 
Kxaniina- quasi-public bodies have tended in the same direction. 
In 1863, a voluntary committee was formed, with a view 
to secure for girls' schools a share in the advantages 
which the then new system of Local Examinations was 
proposing to confer on secondary schools for boys. The 
University of Cambridge proceeded cautiously and ten- 
tatively, and at first simply gave to this committee 
permission to conduct a trial examination of the pupils 
in girls' schools with the same papers which had been 
used for boys. Two years afterwards, the success of 
this experiment was sufficiently assured to justify the 
authorities of the University in opening its Junior and 
Senior local examinations on equal terms to scholars of 
both sexes. Oxford soon followed, and during twenty- 
five years the number of school-girls who have presented 
themselves at the examinations has steadily increased. 
Since the year 1870, in which the Oxford Local Examina- 
tions were first thrown open to girls, the results have 
continued to justify the experiment, and in 1899 there 
were 1,293 Senior candidates, of whom 867 passed and 
1,885 Juniors, of whom 1,386 passed. The total number 
of girls within the twenty years has been 34,735, of 
whom 24,756 have satisfied the examiners. At Cam- 
bridge still larger results are recorded, the number during 
the same period having been 29,078 Seniors and 44,708 
Junior candidates, the proportion of those who succeeded 
in the examination varying from 70 to 80 per cent. 

But the influence of this action of the two Universities 
on secondary education cannot be accurately measured 
by the mere enumeration of statistics shewing how many 
hundred pupils annually satisfy the examiners and obtain 
distinction. The local examinations have set before 



Girls' Public Day Schools 405 

the conductors of girls' schools a higher standard of work 
than that which was recognized before. They have helped 
pupils to that most valuable of all knowledge — self- 
knowledge, and a truer estimate of their own standing 
and acquirements. Above all they have had a beneficent 
influence on parents, many of whom were slow to recog- 
nize the value of a truly liberal education for their 
daughters. Swift's cynical remark, " the reason why so 
many marriages are unhappy is because young ladies 
spend their time in making nets, not in making cages," 
has not even yet wholly lost its significance. 

The establishment of the Girls' Public Day School Girls' 
Company in 1874, mainly through the energetic efforts ^^^ 
of Mrs William Grey, her sister Miss Shirreff, and Miss Schools. 
Mary Gurney, has perhaps had a larger influence on the 
improvement of feminine education than any single mea- 
sure. The lines of its action had been traced and much 
of the pioneer work had been done by the skilful and 
successful exertions of Miss Beale of Cheltenham and the 
late Miss Buss of the North London Collegiate School. 
Following the precedents thus set, the Company has 
familiarized parents with institutions of a comparatively 
new type, each under the administration of a responsible 
governing body, whose duty it is to select skilled teachers, 
and to remove any who are found to be inefficient. 
These schools are large enough to admit of proper 
classification, and as their educational aim has always 
been high and generous, they have attained remarkable 
success. The Company has now 34 flourishing schools 
of its own, with upwards of 7,000 pupils. These figures, 
however, do not represent the whole or nearly the whole 
of the work which it has done. For in numerous places 
independent bodies of local governors have been formed 
for the establishment of girls' high scliools of the same 
character, though not actually incorporated with the 



4o6 Women mid Universities 

Company ; and at present there is hardly an important 
town in England which has not its Public Day School for 
Girls. The whole enterprise has greatly helped to raise 
the standard of instruction, to encourage the due training 
and preparation of highly qualified teachers, and to 
remove from girls' education the reproach which the 
Schools Inquiry Commission of 1867 declared to be 
well founded : " Want of thoroughness and foundation, 
want of system, slovenliness, and showy superficiality, 
inattention to rudiments, undue time given to accom- 
plishments, and those not taught intelligently or in any 
scientific manner, and a complete absence of proper 
organization." 
Social Incidentally, too, the establishment of the public day 

this schools has been attended by beneficent social conse- 

movement. quences. Until these schools were founded, girls whose 
parents could not afford to employ private governesses 
were generally sent to schools which were conducted on 
a small scale, and which called themselves " educational 
homes," although, to say the truth, places of instruction 
conducted by strangers are very little like any home from 
which a pupil could come, or which she is likely ever 
to enter. The average British matron is keenly sensitive 
on the subject of caste and social position. She objects 
strongly to any association of her girls with those belonging 
to a lower stratum of society, although she has no objec- 
tion to secure for them a place in a school frequented 
by scholars of higher rank than her own. Hence the 
typical school thirty or forty years ago was an exclusive 
'' seminary" with about twenty girls, all drawn from the 
same social class, and presided over by a gentlewoman, 
who, whether intellectually qualified or not, might be 
safely relied on for attention to all the convenances and 
proprieties of life. The teaching in such schools was 
either narrow and uninspiring, or if skilled teachers were 



TJie University of London 407 

employed was exceedingly costly. Now, the wisest 

parents are beginning to discover that, if they exercise 

reasonable care about the associations their daughters 

form out of school, there is no harm, but much good, to 

be found in the freer life, the varied intellectual interests, 

the larger numbers and the better classification of a good 

day school. In this way much foohsh prejudice has 

been removed ; children in different ranks have learned 

to respect one another, and to help one another ; and 

the sentiment of republican equality, the disciphne of a 

community in which the only recognizable distinctions 

are those founded on differences of character, knowledge, 

and ability, has been found to play as useful a part in the 

education of girls as in that of their brothers in a great 

public school. 

In close connexion with this movement, the steps The 

taken by the University of London may deserve some '^{^{^^^'^J-^y 
■' ■' ■' of London. 

record here. In 1866, the Senate resolved to establish 
some special examinations for women ; and accordingly 
courses of instruction were framed, and special regula- 
tions adopted for the examination of women in those 
subjects which, at that period of our educational history, 
were assumed to be peculiarly appropriate to the sex. 
Modern languages, history, literature, and certain branches 
of science were made prominent in the curriculum in 
obedience to a supposed demand. But it soon became 
evident that this was not what the best schoolmistresses 
or their pupils wanted. With unexpected perversity, the 
women who presented themselves for examination were 
found to be seeking distinction in the ordinary subjects 
of a liberal education in classics, logic, mathematics, and 
physical science, and not in those alternative subjects 
which had been offered to them as specially feminine. 
The women's certificates were but little valued by the 



4o8 Women and Universities 

public, or coveted by the students, because, rightly or 
wrongly, they were supposed to be awarded on more 
lenient terms than the distinctions accessible to men. 
Experience led to the belief that the true solution of the 
problem could only be found by the simple expedient of 
throwing open all the examinations, degrees, honours, and 
prizes of the University to women on precisely the same 
conditions as to men ; and in 1878, the Senate, with the 
concurrence of Convocation, obtained a charter from the 
Crown, enabling persons of both sexes, who fulfilled the 
necessary requirements, to graduate in all the Faculties. 

In June 1879, at the first Matriculation opened to 
women, 68 entered and 51 passed, of whom eleven were 
placed in the Honours Division. It should be remem- 
bered that the average age of the women was rather 
higher than that of the men, and that at first only a few 
women, who had either unusual ambition or had enjoyed 
exceptional advantages, were tempted to become candi- 
dates for University Examinations. Thus the proportion 
of successful women at the next Matriculation was 
68-4 per cent., but as time has gone on the percentage of 
passes has continuously approached that of the men. If 
the results up to 1898 be taken, we find there have been 
59,275 entries of male candidates, of whom 31,589 have 
passed,, and 9,599 entries of female candidates, of whom 
5,185 passed, i.e. 53-2 per cent, and 54 per cent, re- 
spectively, giving a small difference in favour of women 
candidates. 

During the first twenty years in which degrees have 
thus become accessible, women have become candidates 
for every degree the University has to offer except one — 
the Doctorate of Laws ; and every degree to which they 
have aspired — again except one, the Doctorate of Music 
— has been obtained by some woman ; 5,185 have passed 



Provincial Colleges 409 

the Matriculation Examination, 1,383 the Intermediate 
Examination in Arts, 861 have proceeded to the degree 
of Bachelor of Arts, (i2> ^^ ^^^ higher degree of M.A. In 
the Science Faculty, 266 have passed the Intermediate 
Examination, and 145 have obtained the degree of B.Sc. 
and 9 that of Doctor of Science. In addition to these 
120 women have passed the Intermediate Examination 
in Medicine, 74 have become Bachelors of Medicine, 
23 Bachelors of Surgery, and 21 have won the full degree 
of M.D. Bedford College, London, is now recognized as 
a constituent college of the newly organized University 
of London. It receives an annual subsidy of ^1,200 
from the Government. It numbers 180 female students, 
and has achieved very remarkable success in examina- 
tions. 

This example has been followed by many o^\i^x Provincial 
academic bodies more recently constituted. The Durham ^^^^^^^ ^J 

University 

University, with which the great College of Science vdrank. 
Newcastle is connected, has made special provision for 
the admission of women to its degrees ; the University of 
Wales, and the Victoria University which unites into one 
federation the flourishing University Colleges at Man- 
chester, Liverpool, and Leeds, have also adopted the same 
liberal provisions ; and the proposed new Midland Uni- 
versity, of which Birmingham will be the home, and with 
which the Colleges at Nottingham and others will probably 
be incorporated, also proposes to open its degrees freely 
and on equal terms to candidates of both sexes. The 
great provincial colleges which have of late sprung up 
in the principal industrial towns, and are distinctly of a 
University type, have not yet all received Charters of 
incorporation empowering them to confer degrees ; but 
all of them are likely to be federated with some local 
University ere long, and meanwhile women are fully 



410 Women and Universities 

eligible for admission both to the college classes, and 
to such distinctions as the authorities are able to give. 
The older But the most remarkable, and in some respects the 
sities. most effective encouragement which has been given to 
the cause of women's academic education, is that which 
has been afforded in the ancient Universities of Oxford 
and Cambridge. The authorities of a modern institution 
like the University of London deserve no special honour 
for adapting their requirements to modern wants, because 
they had, in fact, little or no difficulty to surmount. The 
functions of that institution have been long limited to the 
framing of schemes of study, and to the examination of 
students. No conditions of residence, no ancient usages 
or statutes, existed to obstruct the great reform of 1878, 
or to hinder the admission of women to full membership 
of the University, and to the enjoyment of all the schol- 
arships, prizes, and distinctions it had to bestow. But 
Oxford and Cambridge have behind them the traditions 
of many centuries. They have been enriched by benefac- 
tions at various periods, and have been controlled by Royal 
Charters and by the terms of founders' deeds. These facts 
ought to be borne in mind, whether, on the one hand, 
we may feel disposed to complain of the hesitating and 
partial measures yet adopted by the older Universities 
in their corporate capacity, or whether we gratefully 
recognize, as we have good reason to do, the generous 
aid and sympathy which leading members of both Uni- 
versities, and especially of Cambridge, have personally 
extended from the first to the whole movement. 
Girton In 1869 the first attempt was made to establish in 

Nezvnham England a College of University rank for women. A 
Colleges, house was taken at Hitchin, so as to be reasonably acces- 
sible to tutors both fro.n London and Cambridge, and 
it was adapted for the reception of six students. In 1869 



Girt oil and NezvnJiam 41 1 



the College was removed to a new building erected 
for the purpose at Girton, near Cambridge. Little by 
little the premises have been enlarged, and the numbers 
have increased, so that there are now upwards of 100 
students. Large and cosdy additions to the College 
buildings are now in progress ; and there will shortly be 
ample room for 200 resident students. 

Newnham College under its first Principal Miss A. J. 
Clough began in 187 1, when a house was taken for the 
accommodation of students attending those lectures which 
were open to women in Cambridge. It expanded rapidly, 
one hall being opened in 1875, a second called Sidgwick 
Hall in 1879, and a third called Clough Hall in 1888. 
The total number of residents in these three halls is now 
167 ; and the Hst of those who have studied at Newn- 
ham, many of whom have proceeded to the Tripos 
Examination, includes twelve hundred names. 

It is, of course, to be noted that these Colleges are 
not the product of any action on the part of the Univer- 
sities, but owe their existence to the vigorous initiative 
of Miss Emily Davies, Miss Clough, Lady Stanley of 
Alderley, and others, with the help of some resident 
members of the University. From the first the friends 
and promoters of the colleges sought recognition by the 
University, and admission to the degree examinations. 
But during the early years it was only by a friendly and 
informal arrangement that the female students were 
permitted to take the same papers which were set to 
ordinary candidates, the results being communicated 
privately to the governing body of the College. Memo- 
rials were presented to the Senate praying that the privi- 
lege thus granted by way of exceptional favour might be 
formally recognized under the express sanction of the 
University, and in 1880 a Syndicate was formed to 



412 Women and Universities 

report on the whole subject. It was in accordance with 
the report of that Syndicate that the present regulations 
of the University respecting women received the final 
approval of the Senate in February 1881. 
Cambridge These regulations concede to the students of Girton 
regula-^ ^' ^^'^^ Newnham, and of any similar institution which may 
f'ons. hereafter be recognized by grace of the Senate, several 
substantial privileges. They admit women who may 
have satisfied the ordinary conditions respecting length 
of residence and standing which members of the Univer- 
sity are required to fulfil, to the Previous Examination 
or " Little Go," and to the Tripos Examinations, and they 
provide, for the female students who pass, a published 
list under the authority of the University, shewing the 
place in order of standing and merit which such students 
would have occupied if they had been men. But they 
do not permit the University actually to confer upon 
women the time-honoured degree of B.A. or M.A., and 
they do not admit them to the standing of Members of 
the University, and so to a share in its government. 
These privileges could not be granted by a grace of the 
Senate, nor without obtaining new powers from the Crown. 
And at present, notwithstanding the good will of a large 
body of the resident members, the grant of such new 
powers has not been sought by the University. 
'Oxford. The University of Oxford has followed the example 

of Cambridge somewhat tardily and tentatively but 
with valuable and encouraging results. Three Colleges 
for female students have been established — Somerville 
College, Lady Margaret Hall in 1879, and St. Hugh's 
Hall in 1886. The University instituted special exami- 
nations for women in 1875 ; ^'^^^ having passed through 
similar experience to that already described ^ in London, 

1 Ante^ p. 407. 



Oxford 4 1 3 

determined by a new Statute in 1884 to open to women 
the ordinary examination of the University, for Moder- 
ations (Classics and Mathematics), Natural Science, and 
Modern History. From that time the Special Ex- 
aminations for women except for English and Modern 
Languages were abolished and the students were 
examined in the same papers as those set to under- 
graduates. In 1886 women were admitted to Respon- 
sions ; in 1888 to the Honour School of Litei-te Hiuna- 
niores ; in 1840 to the Honour School of Jurisprudence 
and the final Examination for Bachelor of Music ; in 
1893 to the Honour Schools of Theology and Oriental 
Studies, and in 1894 to the remaining examinations for 
the degree of B.A. 

On the successes which women have obtained and of 
the use they have made of the privileges accorded to them 
by the Universities, it would be superfluous to dwell. 
Every year since 1881 has witnessed an increased num- 
ber of women attaining distinction in the examinations. 
Girton alone has received 725 residential students, of 
whom 468 have obtained Honours according to the 
Cambridge University standard, 188 having obtained 
Honours in the Classical Tripos, 127 in ]\Iathematics, 
and the rest in History, Natural Science, or Mediaeval 
and Modern Languages. In the single year 1899, 
Newnham sent up 65 students, of whom 12 obtained First 
Class, 29 Second Class, and 20 Third Class Honours. 
At Oxford, ten women have already passed in the First 
Class at Moderations and ^,6 in the Second Class : 
while at the Final Honour School 56 have passed in the 
First Class and 119 in the Second. 

The opponents of the proposal to admit women to 
degrees often aver that women ought to be content 
with the honorary recognition which the University has 



414 Women and Universities 

conceded ; and that it is unreasonable for them to expect 
any share in University revenues or emoluments, since 
the testators and donors who have enriched the Univer- 
sity from time to time deliberately designed their gifts 
for the purpose of helping the education of men, and 
never contemplated any division of the funds between men 
and women. But to this it may be replied, that neither 
did these benefactors contemplate the recognition by the 
University of women's colleges, or of feminine wranglers. 
The steps already taken by the University constitute as 
complete a departure both from the letter and the spirit 
of ancient deeds and ordinances as would be effected by 
a readjustment of University revenues. Moreover, the 
twelfth section of the Endowed Schools Act, to which 
reference has already been made here, constitutes an 
important precedent ; for it expresses clearly the will of 
the Legislature in reference to the future appropriation 
of some share of educational revenues, whatever was 
their original intention, to the instruction of girls. Those 
who have the greatest reverence for the " pious founder " 
will be the last to doubt that if he were as wise and 
benevolent as we like to consider him, he would probably, 
had he lived in our time, have shown as enlightened a 
regard to the wants and special circumstances of our age, 
as he exercised in reference to the educational require- 
ments of his own. In his absence we are entitled to 
conjecture that he would not have disapproved, but 
would probably have welcomed, any modification in 
the conditions of his gift which would have adapted 
it more completely to the changed circumstances 
and new intellectual interests of the present gene- 
ration. 
Health Many anxious misgivings were at first entertained 

students, ^^en by those who had the strongest interest in the 



Health of Students 415 



academic education of women, in regard to its possible 
effect on the health and physical vigour of the students. 
It was feared that the opening of new facilities for study 
and intellectual improvement would result in the crea- 
tion of a new race of puny, sedentary, and unfeminine 
students, would destroy the grace and charm of social life, 
and would disqualify women for their true vocation, the 
nurture of the coming race, and the governance of well- 
ordered, healthy, and happy homes. All these predic- 
tions have been emphatically falsified by experience. 
The really fatal enemy to health among young women 
is the aimless, idle, frivolous life into which, for want 
of better employment, they are so often tempted to drift. 
Intellectual pursuits, when duly co-ordinated with other 
forms of activity, are attested by all the best medical 
authorities to be eminently conducive to health. Such 
records as exist in regard to the strength and general 
capacity of the students, to their marriages, and to the 
usefulness of their subsequent careers, are curiously con- 
tradictory of the dismal anticipations which were at first 
expressed on this subject. The period over which statis- 
tical data on this point extend is at present short ; and 
it would be premature to dogmatize confidently on the 
subject. But those who would learn what experience, 
so far as it has gone, has to teach us, would do well to 
consult the weighty testimony collected by the late Mrs 
Emily Pfeiffer from medical and educational authorities 
in her interesting volume entitled, "Women and Work," 
or the still more striking facts and figures which have 
been collated by Mrs Henry Sidgwick, in her pamphlet, 
entitled, '' Health Statistics of Women Students of Cam- 
bridge and Oxford, and of their sisters." It will be 
plain to all who will study this evidence, that there is no 
antagonism between serious study and a healthy and 



41 6 Women and Universities 

joyous life; and that the widening of women's intellectual 
interests is more likely to add to the charm and grace 
and happiness of the home than to diminish it. 
^ It has been publicly urged by some persons of 

University, i^nuence that the desire of women for academic privi- 
leges would best be satisfied by the creation of a separate 
Women's University with which the various Colleges for 
women might be federated. But this would be a very 
unsatisfactory solution of the problem, and would cer- 
tainly prove to be unwelcome to women themselves. 
Degrees conferred by a feminine University upon women 
only, would be universally regarded as inferior in value 
to others. In so far as the standard of attainment was 
concerned, it would be difficult to persuade the public 
that there was no exceptional leniency and lowering of 
the standard to meet the students' needs. And in so far 
as the degrees depended on a different curriculum or 
a specially devised selection of subjects, the system 
would be based on a wholly unverified hypothesis. 

For one truth has been brought into clear light by 
the history of educational development in England 
during the last thirty years. It is that in our present 
state of knowledge and experience all attempts to dif- 
ferentiate the studies and the intellectual careers of men 
and women are premature and probably futile. Educa- 
tion is essentially an inductive science, a science of 
experiment and observation. A priori theories are as 
much out of place here as in chemistry or astronomy. 
What knowledge will prove of most worth to women, 
what they will value most, what they will best be able to 
turn to account, and what is best suited to their own 
intellectual and spiritual needs, we do not know, and 
cannot yet safely judge. Neither the philosophers nor 
the practical teachers have yet been able to formulate a 



The intellectual claims of women 41 7 



coherent scheme of doctrine on these points. The ten- 
tative and empirical efforts of those who have tried their 
hands at framing a course of study exchisively adapted 
to women have all proved failures. As we have seen, 
the special women's examination of the University of 
London was not greatly valued, and was soon abandoned. 
The University of St Andrews, which has invented a 
special distinction — that of LL.A., for female candidates 
only — ^ would have proved more generally useful, and 
certainly more attractive, if it had simply offered to 
candidates of both sexes examinations of the same 
academic value and under the same conditions. 

It would of course be rash to afifirm that there are no The tri^e 
differences in the moral and mental endowment of men ^"^''^^^'"^«'" 

reqidVc- 

and women which ought to exercise an influence on omx ments of 
methods of education. In some future age, it niay '^^^''''^"• 
become possible to map out the whole field of human 
knowledge, and to say what part of it should be cultivated 
by one sex, and what part by the other. But at present 
the materials for a decision do not exist, and any assump- 
tion that we are in a position to decide will serve only 
to make the future solution of the problem in a wise and 
satisfactory way more difificult. Meanwhile, women have 
a right to say to all in authority — "Make your own 
schemes of instruction and your tests of scholarship for 
men as perfect as you can. Devise as many new and 
effective forms of mental discipline, and courses of 
instruction, as you think can be wisely offered to men 
of various aptitudes and careers; and then permit us, if 
we fulfil the same preliminary conditions, to exercise the 
same choice, and to avail ourselves of just so much of 
your system as we feel will be helpful to us. We do not 
want your ideal of a liberal education to be lowered or 
modified to suit us. But we want to know liow far our 

2E 



41 8 Women and Universities 



own aims and achievements correspond to that ideal, 
and we ask leave to be measured by the recognized 
tests." 

Men will be helped in giving a wise and generous 
response to this appeal in just the proportion in which 
they view it in the light of their own personal history and 
experience. If a man who is destined, for example, to 
the Law or the Church were to take up some subject, 
such as Botany or Chemistry, were to write a treatise on 
Grimm's law, orontheFourthdimension, and if any public 
authority were to interpose with a reminder that such 
studies had no relation to the proper business of his life, 
and ought therefore not to be undertaken, he would regard 
such interference as impertinent. He would claim to be 
the best judge of his own interests. In like manner we 
are not entitled to affirm respecting any one department 
of intellectual effort that it is unsuited to the nature or 
to the probable destiny of a woman. There is no kind 
of knowledge, if honestly acquired, which may not be 
found available in unexpected ways, for the enrichment 
and the adornment of life, whether the life be that of a 
man or of a woman. And even though the knowledge 
or power which are the product of a liberal education 
may seem to have no bearing at all upon the special 
career or definite duties of a woman, yet if it be felt 
by its possessor to make life more full, more varied, and 
more interesting and better worth living, no other justi- 
fication is needed for placing the largest opportunities 
within her reach. She has a right to exercise a free 
choice, and to solve the problem for herself. Neither 
the professional duty of a man nor the domestic duty of a 
woman occupies the whole of life. Beyond it lies a wide 
region of activity, of honourable ambition, and of possible 
usefulness. There is leisure to be filled, thought and 



Unused res ota'ces 419 



taste to be nurtured, influence to be exerted, and good 
to be done. And it is the business of man and woman 
alike to recognize the claims of this larger life, and to 
become qualified to make a right use of such occasions 
as fortune may offer for meeting those claims. 

There is no more familiar fact in human experience, The 
nor one which suggests more pathetic reflection, than the ^'^"'■^'^^ 

°o '^ ' resources 

large store of unused capacity in the world. Hundreds ^////^. 
of men and thousands of women carry with them down 
to their graves great gifts which are well nigh wasted, 
noble aspirations which are unrealized, powers of use- 
fulness which are unsuspected by the world and hardly 
known to their possessors, simply because the right 
means for development and encouragement have not 
been supplied, and because opportunity has been want- 
ing. It cannot be doubted that in the intelligence of 
many women, in their desire for truth, in their high aims, 
and in their power to render service to the world in 
which they live, there is a great store of wealth, which 
has never been adequately recognized or turned to pro- 
fitable account. The worid is made poorer by every 
restriction — whether imposed by authority, or only 
conventionally prescribed by our social usages — which 
hampers the free choice of women in relation to their 
careers, their studies, or their aims in life. It is probable 
that in many ways yet undiscovered — in certain depart- 
ments of art, of scientific research, of literature, and of 
philanthropic work — the contributions of women to the 
resources of the world will prove to be of increasing 
value to mankind. And it may also be that experience 
will prove certain forms of mental activity to be unsuit- 
able. Nature, we may be sure, may be safely trusted to 
take care of her own laws. The special duties which she 
has assigned to one half of the human race will always 



420 Women and Universities 



be paramount; but of the duties which are common to 
the whole human race, we do not know, and cannot yet 
know, how large a share women may be able to under- 
take. It is probably larger than the wisest of our con- 
temporaries anticipate. If there be natural disabilities 
there is all the less reason for imposing artificial disabil- 
ities. Hitherto every step which has been taken in 
opening out new forms of active work and increased 
influence to women has been a clear gain to society, and 
has added much to the happiness of women themselves. 
It is, therefore, not merely the chivalry nor even the 
sense of justice but also the enlightened self-interest of 
man, that are concerned in the solution of this problem. 
It is not his duty to urge women in the direction of 
employments they feel to be uncongenial to them. But 
it is his duty to remove as far as possible all impediments 
and disqualifications which yet remain in restraint of 
their own discretion, to leave the choice of careers as 
open to them as it is to himself, and to wait and see 
what comes of it. Nothing but good can come of it. 



LECTURE XV 

THE FRENCH LEAVING CERTIFICATE ^ 

Ceiiificat d' Etudes Primaires 

The French law authorizing the award of leaving certificates. Its 
influence on the attendance of scholars. Constitution of the 
local Commission. The standard of examination. Les Acoles 
primaires snperieures. The examinations not competitive. 
Statistics. Practical results. The English Problem. Our 
Standards. Individual examination. Its uses and defects. 
Certificates for special subjects. Labour certificates. The 
Scotch certificate of merit. The ideal primary school course. 
Optional subjects. Oral examination. The relation between 
school and home. 

By the Law of March 28, 1882, the Minister of Public The law 
Instruction in France was empowered and directed io'^-^J^/J^' 
provide, both in the capital and in the provinces, for the aican/ 0/ 
award of certificates to scholars at the end of the primary ^^' ^^'^" ^^' 
school course. The purpose of this measure was partly 
to attest that the holder had received a fair elementary 
education, and partly to facilitate his entrance into the 
ranks of labour. 

This law has now been in operation for sixteen years, 
and has proved to be highly successful. Its influence on 
the social and industrial condition of the people, on the 
schools, the teachers, and the parents, has been so 

^ Reprinted with the permission of the Controller of Her 
Majesty's Stationery Office, from the Special Reports on Educational 
Subjects issued by the Education Department, 1897. 

421 



422 The FrencJi Leavijig Certificate 

marked that it well deserves the serious attention of 
English teachers and public authorities, and of all others 
interested in the expansion and improvement of our own 
school system. 

Former In a Parliamentary paper which I was instructed to 

^Julubjlct prepare in 1891, I gave the following account of the 
working of the plan up to that date : — 

''The most potent instrument in maintaining a high 
standard of school attendance in France is probably the 
certificat d^ etudes or leaving certificate, for it applies not 
merely to the picked scholars who prolong their educa- 
tion in the higher grade schools but to the rank and file 
of French children. Any boy or girl, however or wherever 
educated, can, after the age of eleven, be presented to 
the local authority, and can claim, after passing a success- 
ful examination in elementary subjects, a certificate which 
will exempt him from the legal obligation to attend 
school and qualify him to obtain employment. The 
plan came into use as early as 1836, but was not 
legalized until the statute of 1882, which provided in 
every part of France for the establishment of a local 
tribunal or 'jury' empowered to examine candidates and 
to grant certificates. In that year the number of boys 
presented was 80,301, of whom 53,156 passed, the number 
of girls being 54,138, of whom 47,077 passed. During 
the last decade the numbers have steadily increased, and 
in 1889 123,598 boys and 97,012 girls were examined, 
of whom 90,663 boys and 74,458 girls passed, making a 
total of 165,211 children between the ages of 11 and 16, 
who in a single year satisfied the requirements of the 
examiners and received certificates. A similar leaving 
examination has been devised for the end of the course 
in the higher grade schools, and in 1889 there were 



The FreiicJi Law 423 



2,550 candidates (1,652 boys and 898 girls) presented at 
these examinations, of whom 1,491 (960 boys and 531 
girls) were successful. In Paris alone in 1888 the total 
number of candidates for the advanced leaving certificate 
was 5,873 boys and 4,427 girls, 81 percent, of the former 
and 78.3 of the latter having succeeded in the examination. 
It is to be observed that the proportion of successful 
scholars from the private or unaided schools is not less 
favourable than that of pupils from the public schools. 

" The local jury or board empowered by law to issue 
these leaving certificates is variously composed of official 
and representative personages ; but in every case much 
of the practical business of examination is done by the 
Government inspector, aided by the head teachers of the 
district, provision being made in every case that no 
teacher shall examine his own pupils. The law does not 
permit any child under 15 to work in a factory or work- 
shop more than six hours a day, unless he or she has 
obtained the certificate. In Paris the examination ex- 
tends to reading, writing, and arithmetic, the elements of 
geography, history, and natural science, and a composi- 
tion on some familiar subject, especially the rights and 
duties of citizens — a branch of instruction much insisted 
on in French schools. A scholar of 13 or 14 unprovided 
with his certified f d' etudes has no chance of admission to 
a higher grade or technical school, and year by year such 
a scholar finds himself at a greater disadvantage when he 
presents himself in the industrial market. Employers 
everywhere seem to value the certificate, and the number 
of such employers who regard its possession as a con- 
dition to be fulfilled by appUcants increases every year. 
It is hardly necessary to say that in public companies, in 
most large business establishments, and in all branches 
of the public service, the certificate is indispensable. 



424 The French Leaving Certificate 

M. Greard speaks strongly of its moral effect : '■ C'est le 
benefice des examens du certificat d'etudes qui tiennent 
les esprits en haleine et concourent ainsi a d^velopper 
les habitudes de perseverance et de ponctualit^ dans le 
travail.' 

" There can be Httle doubt that the leaving certificate 
system and the state of public opinion which sustains it, 
combine to exercise a strong influence on the regular 
attendance of the children. A scholar who is irregular 
has little chance of succeeding at the examination at all, 
and has certainly no chance of obtaining it so early as 
II or 12, and so of acquiring the right to go to work 
before he is 13. And since the scholars of the private 
and confessional schools are all alike eligible for the 
examination and have the same motives for attending it, 
the indirect effect of the law of 1882 is to improve the 
character of the instruction in those schools, and to 
secure a high average of ' frequentation ' in them, although 
they are not directly subject to any State control. The 
one criticism which I have heard most frequently in 
France on the working of the system is that the local 
authorities often grant the certificate on rather too easy 
terms, especially where the demand for juvenile labour 
on farms is active. But the standard of proficiency is 
said to be improving." ^ 

Further inquiries and experience have since con- 
firmed the hopeful forecast which was thus expressed, 
and justify a fuller explanation of some administrative 
and other details. 

The law prescribes that in every canton there shall 
be an Examining Commission composed of: (i) The 

1 Memorandum on the working of the Free School System in 
America, France, and Belgium. 189 1. 



TJie Standard of Examination 425 

Inspector of Primary Schools for the district, who acts as Constitn- 
president, (2) several head teachers of Primary Schools, ^/^"/'/ ^^^^ 

^ ^ ^ ■' local com- 

(3) two or more persons, e.g. lawyers, doctors, professors, mission 
or other local residents, specially nominated by the ^ examen. 
Rector of the Provincial Academy and known to be 
interested in the schools. These Cantonal Commis- 
sioners form a Board, which meets regularly at the end 
of each scholastic year. 

It is expressly enjoined that the level of the educa- The 
tional requirements shall not rise above the cours j?ioyen^^V . 
of a good primary school. The examination is partly ?^«/zV?;2. 
oral and partly written. It includes: — 

{a) A dictation exercise of about fifteen lines of 
print, which serves also as a test of hand- 
writing. 

{B) Questions on arithmetic, the metric system and 
its simple applications, avec solution raisoniiee. 

{c) A composition exercise on one of these subjects : 
(i) Moral and Civic Duty; (ii) History and 
Geography; (iii) Elementary notions of 
Science and its applications. 

id) For girls an exercise in needlework, and for 
boys in rural schools an examination in agri- 
culture, and in urban schools, one in drawing 
and design. 

The oral part of the examination includes reading 
aloud, recitation of some choice literary extract, either in 
prose or verse, with questions on its meaning, besides 
general questions in history and geography. 

A scale of marks is officially prescribed, and no 
candidate receives his certificate unless he scores at least 
half the marks attainable under each of the heads of the 
examination. 



426 The .French Leaving Cei'tijicate 

Besides these obligatory subjects, the candidate may 
present himself or herself for an additional examination 
in one or two optional (^facultative) subjects, e.g. drawing 
and design. Special mention is made on the certificate 
of any success thus attained. 
The higher Besides the ordinary leaving certificate, another of a 
I'crtiftcate ^^^^ ^^^^ has been provided for scholars of the higher 
for grade school. No candidate is admissible to this ex- 

7h7^co\Q amination who has not previously obtained the elementary 
primaire certificate; and therefore no minimum age has been 
supeiieure. ^^^^j^ f^j. admission. The Commissioners to whom the 
higher duty of awarding this certificate has been entrusted 
are named in each Department by the Rector of the Pro- 
vincial Academy. They include inspectors, professors 
in colleges or secondary schools, and lecturers in training 
colleges. Two ladies at least are nominated as members 
of each Commission, and are specially charged with 
the direction and supervision of the examinations for 
girls. 

The examination for these higher certificates is 
attended for the most part by scholars at the end of the 
fifteenth or sixteenth year, who have pursued their studies 
in some higher grade school. It is open, however, to 
other candidates who fulfil the necessary conditions as to 
age and previous certification. These higher grade 
schools are, as has been fully and very clearly shown by 
Mr Morant,^ not secondary schools, but primary schools 
with a developed programme, intended to carry forward 
the elementary school work on the same lines up to the 
age of 16. As I have explained in the Memorandum 
already quoted: "They are officially described as de- 
signed for those scholars for whom elementary education 

1 The French System of Higher Primary Schools, p. 287 in 
Special Reports on Educational Subjects, 1897. 



Subjects for advanced Schools 427 

properly so called is not sufficient and for whose needs 
secondary education would be inappropriate." I'hey are 
not, in fact, secondary schools, the instruction in them 
is perfectly gratuitous, and they form an integral part of 
organized primary instruction. No Latin or Greek is 
taught in them; they stand in no relation to the lycees or 
the colleges, and they form no part of a scheme providing 
a "ladder" from the Kindefgafien to the University. 
Their aim is not to lift the pupil out of the ranks of the 
industrial class, but to enable him to occupy a higher 
and more honourable place within that class. They 
seek to provide education specially fitted for the skilled 
artizan or merchant's clerk, and their chief attention is 
given to drawing, \o couiptabilite, to science, especially to 
physics, chemistry, and mathematics; and to the acqui- 
sition of one modern language. In several of these 
schools special attention is given to manual training, to 
the use of tools and instruments, and to the learning of 
trades. 

This being the general aim of the higher grade 77z^ jm(5- 
primary school, the Certificat d' Etudes priniaires supc- ^^'^^^ ^"^ 
rieures corresponds in the main to the curriculum of ofexami- 
those schools. The examination, which is partly oral '^'^^^'^"' 
and partly by written papers, extends to five sub- 
jects: — 

{a) A composition in French, consisting of a letter, 
a narrative — {recit, compte rendu on rapporty 
developpement d'' une inaxime, etc.). 

(d) A paper on history and geography. 

(c) An exercise in mathematics and in the elements 

of physical and natural science. 

(d) Design and geometrical drawing. 



428 The French Leaving Certificate 

(<f) An exercise in one modern language at the 
choice of the candidate, German, English, 
Italian, Spanish, or Arabic. An easy piece 
of translation is given of some passage not 
prescribed beforehand, but the candidate is 
permitted to use a lexicon. 
Under each of these five heads there are three 
distinct forms of examination corresponding to three 
several programmes adopted in the schools, viz. : — 
(i) the section for general instruction, (2) the industrial 
section, and (3) the commercial section. Candidates in 
inserting their names at the outset are required to specify 
the section in which they severally desire to be included. 
The fifth (<?) of the departments of the examination 
(modern languages) may be dispensed with in the case 
of those who select the industrial or agricultural section, 
but is obligatory on all who present themselves in section 
(i) or (3). There are further special practical tests of 
proficiency in music, manual work, or gymnastics; and 
success attained in one of them is recorded to the credit 
of the student. The certificates thus awarded are de- 
livered to the candidates in a public ceremony by the 
Rector of the Provincial Academy, and in the presence 
of the municipal authorities and the parents. 
The It is an important feature of the whole scheme that 

eavin^ the examinations are not competitive, and are not de- 
tion not signed to single out scholars for special distinction. That 
competi- purpose — a very legitimate one — is to be fulfilled, if 
at all, by other agencies. On this point M. Greard 
says : — 

" Que certaines recompenses soient mises au concours, cela est 
desirable et n'a rien de dangereux. Mais, trop souvent renouvele 
et applique au resultat proprement dit des etudes, le concours a pour 
effet d'incliner les mattres et les eleves a la recherche des succes 



Statistics mid results 429 

d'eclat, et rien ne serait plus prejudiciable au developpement sage- 
raent entendu de I'instruction primaire. Les elites arriveront tou- 
jours k sortir du rang. C'est sur la masse des enfants que I'interet 
social commande d'exercer une action efficace. Qu'ils sachent que 
c'est par le travail de tous les jours, par la bonne conduite de tous 
les jours, sous les yeux de leurs camarades ordinaires et de leurs 
mattres habituels, leurs juges^ I'examen, qu'ils obtiendront I'avance- 
ment de classe propose a leur application ou le certificat qui en 
constate le profit supreme : c'est la seulement que peuvent etre la 
force et la moralite des etudes primaires." ^ 

The extent to which this system prevails in France Statistics. 
may be estimated from the fact that during the sixteen 
years in which it has been in existence the number of 
candidates and the proportion of successes have steadily 
increased. In 1897 the total number of scholars pre- 
sented for examination was 236,859, of whom 129,460 
were boys and 107,355 were girls. The number of 
certificates awarded was 101,309 to boys and 84,726 to 
girls, making a total of 186,035, ^^^ showing an average 
of 78.5 per cent, of successful candidates. Besides these, 
the number of scholars presenting themselves for the 
higher examination was 2,064, of whom 1,224 passed 
and obtained the diploma. 

In practice, the system is found to fulfil several im- The prac- 
portant purposes. It gives to teachers a clearly defined ''^^'^{'^^^'^ 
standard of the proper work of an elementary school, system. 
and indicates the goal which ought to be reached in the 
twelfth or thirteenth year by every fairly instructed child 
in such a school. It strengthens the hands of the teacher 
by supplying his scholars with an additional motive for 
diligence, and with a new interest in their own improve- 
ment. It is specially valued by parents, as an attestation 
of the progress of their children, and as a passport to 

1 Education et instruction par Oct. Greard, Vice-Recteur de 
I'Academie de Paris, Membre de I'Academie Fran5aise, p. 85. 



430 The FrencJi Leaving Certificate 

honourable employment. It serves as an entrance ex- 
amination for admission to higher and technical schools, 
and prevents those schools from being encumbered by 
the presence of pupils who are deficient in the rudiments 
of learning. It is year by year more highly appreciated 
by the heads of firms and other employers of labour, who 
are accustomed to ask for it before admitting young 
people into their service. Moreover it furnishes a 
measure of the efficiency of the primary schools, and a 
means of estimating the comparative success and ability 
of the teachers. 

A very effective illustration of the actual working of 
the system, and its influence on the home life of the 
industrial population, is furnished to me in a letter just 
received from a friend who has been travelling some time 
in rural France. He says : — 

" While in France, I came across, in a little village 
home, an interesting proof of the value set by parents 
and children on the primary certificates, and a young 
girl gave me a graphic account of the incidents of, and 
questions set in the examinations which she and her 
sister had in different years succeeded in passing. She 
was now about seventeen, but the examination five years 
before had evidently been one of the most important 
events of her life. I was much struck by the effect 
which this all-round test had evidently had on the course 
of her education. So far as her training went, she was 
an educated girl, her school studies had not been patchy 
or disconnected, but formed a well-balanced whole. 

" I shall never forget the delightfully refined peasant 
mother, the beautifully clean living-room of the cottage, 
the neatly framed certificates on the wall, or the radiant 
pride with which she spoke when I noticed them : and 
then our talk with the young girl herself, one of the 



The EiiglisJi 'Staiidai'ds' 431 

daughters who had won the certificates, — her self-posses- 
sion, her modest pleasure in recalling all the circumstances 
of that memorable examination, and the cultivated 
balance of mind and bearing which shewed itself in 
all her conversation." 

This French experience is not without a special The 

significance for ourselves at the present stage of our 'Jr^JJ^f 

educational history. We have arrived by a series of experience 

tentative efforts at a point at which it is desirable to''"/// 

review the work of our elementary school system ; to ask that have 

whether it has accomplished all that it was hoped to-^'^f^^, 

^ ^ solved in 

achieve or is capable of achieving ; and to set before England. 
ourselves a more clearly defined ideal of the purposes 
which a good primary school ought to fulfil. 

Hitherto the Education Department has sought to Our 
attain its end by laying down with great precision the 
steps by which the elementary course should be graduated 
and by defining the subjects and the degrees of attain- 
ment which are appropriate respectively to the years of 
study from the seventh year to the age of fourteen. For 
a time, these regulations were practically enforced through 
the plan of assessing the amount of public grant payable 
to each school by counting the number of passes after 
individual examination. Although this plan has been 
abandoned, the amount claimable by the several bodies 
of local managers, as their share of the Parliamentary 
grant, is still to some extent determined by the number 
of subjects taken up in a school, and by the results of 
individual examination, as recorded in the Inspector's 
report. Experience has shown that these regulations 
have had some effects, both favourable and unfavourable, 
on the general progress of education. 

On the one hand, it has been found that prescribed 



432 TJie FrencJi Leaving Certificate 

Their standards of examination and attainment for each year, 
defects 
■^ ' even with the large range of options permitted by the 

Code, often interfered injuriously with the hberty of 
classification, and with the teacher's power to adapt his 
methods to the varied requirements of his scholars. The 
connexion of the results of each examination with the 
award of a money payment, and often with the amount 
of a teacher's salary, introduced a disturbing mercenary 
element into his calculations, and sometimes tempted 
him to adopt measures designed too consciously rather 
with a view to obtain the maximum grant than to 
subserve the best interests of the scholars. 
T/ieir ad- On the Other hand, schedules of graduated instruction 
z'un ages. g^^|^ ^^ appear in the appendices to the English Code 
have their value, as showing what is the amount of 
acquirement which can reasonably be expected of children 
at the successive stages of their school career. They 
serve as a guide both to teachers and inspectors ; they 
give definiteness to the plans of all the members of a 
school staff; and they could not be dispensed with 
except at the risk of much looseness and incoherence, 
both in the aims and in the practice of primary instruc- 
tion. 
Individual Moreover, individual examination, though an un- 
satisfactory method of computing a money grant, un- 
questionably acts as a safeguard for thoroughness and 
exactness, and as the best measure of a scholar's progress. 
It is held to be indispensable in all higher schools and 
universities, that such examination should be conducted, 
in part at least, by external authority and not wholly by 
the teachers themselves. Nobody proposes to substitute 
a mere general inspection of methods and organization 
for actual individual examination in our secondary and 
public schools. No parent in such a school would be 



examina 
tion. 



Individual Exam ina Hon 433 

satisfied to learn that his son belonged to a class which 
was certified by an inspector to be well ordered and 
taught. He would desire to know in fuller detail the 
status and progress of the particular pupil in whom he 
was most interested. 

It is to be feared that the association in the minds of 
English elementary teachers between individual examina- 
tion and a wrong and discredited mode of distributing 
public money, has led to a belief that the examination of 
the actual attainments of individual scholars is in itself 
an error in our educational policy and even a grievance to 
teachers. Yet it is one of the truest tests of the efficiency 
of an educational system. The inductive method of in- 
vestigation and verification, which is now employed in all 
departments of science, which judges the worth of theories 
and methods, by asking what is their practical outcome and 
result, and which refuses to assume that any one method 
is necessarily the best until it is subjected to the test of 
experiment, must ever find its due place in any system 
of organized public instruction. Provided that we secure 
in the first place a right conception of the results which 
ought to be attained, and in the second a skilful and 
impartial method of appraising those results, schools 
and educational processes must always to some extent 
be estimated by the results which they can produce. 
Careful individual examination is needed for the due 
satisfaction of parents and of school managers, for the 
proper award of any prize or distinction which the school 
may provide, and for the protection of the interests of 
the less forward scholars who are not hkely to win any 
distinction. And it is difficult to see how responsible 
public authorities can dispense with it, if they would 
maintain a high standard of excellence in either the work 
or the methods of our schools. 
2 F 



434 The Fjrnch Leaving Certificate 

The Ihni- But it is desirable that we should recognize fairly the 
tations to i • • r • i • • i i • • 

its useful- iiecessary nmits to any system of indiviaual examination. 

ness. All good teachers know that the best part of their work 

cannot be measured by any examiners, however skilful 
and sympathetic. The kindling of interest, the forma- 
tion of taste and character, the habits of observation and 
of appHcation, the love of reading, and the aspiration 
after further knowledge and self-improvement are among 
the best and highest results of school training. Although 
these things are of supreme importance, they are pre- 
cisely the results which cannot be adequately tested by 
examination. At the same time the history of the past 
shows that these results are generally secured incident- 
ally and most effectively in those schools in which the 
intellectual level is highest, and in which work of the 
ordinary educational type is most honestly and syste- 
matically done. We have to admit, once for all, that 
there is an inevitable and very serious drawback to the 
usefulness of examinations. We can only measure what 
is measurable. Yet while some of the more precious and 
less palpable results of instruction may escape observation 
and defy the analysis of examiners, the part of education 
which takes the form of direct instruction and is capable 
of >being tested by individual examination, is, though not 
the highest part, yet a very substantial factor in the 
education of the child. We have learned by experience 
that it is a mistake to make 2. fetish of the examination 
system, or to regard it as a satisfactory or final solution 
for all our educational problems. But we may yet have 
to learn that it would be an equally grave mistake to 
discard it altogether, or to lose sight of its legitimate 
uses. The opposite of wrong is not necessarily right, 
and it must be manifest to all who are intimately ac- 
quainted with the subject that in our present stage of 



An English Leaving Certificate 435 

educational progress we cannot safely part with an 
instrument which constitutes the most effective safeguard 
we have yet known both against superficial teaching and 
inadequate inspection. 

This paper is written in the belief that such a safe- An 
guard may be provided by one thorough and well-^'^^" 
considered final examination, adapted to test the xt%\A\.ceriificate 
of the primary school course, at its ordinary termination ^'"' f 
about the fourteenth year. If the standard which 7i schools. 
well-instructed child ought to reach by that age is once 
clearly defined, and teachers become substantially agreed 
as to the end to be attained, the necessity of an authori- 
tative annual examination in standards to a large extent 
disappears; the freedom of classification and the choice 
of methods remain with the teacher, and such communi- 
cation to parents as is desirable respecting the details of 
a scholar's advancement from year to year may be left 
wholly to the local school authorities. But it is essential 
that the Education Department, which is responsible not 
only for the distribution of large public funds, but also 
for the maintenance of a high and improving ideal of 
elementary education in the country, should know from 
year to year what is the outcome of the methods pursued 
in the schools, and how many scholars are turned out 
fairly equipped with the instruction needed for the 
business of life. 

Separate certificates for proficiency in certain selected Certificates 
subjects, such as the Science and Art Department h^^ ;{/';//;f ' 
been accustomed to award, do not wholly meet the need, special 
The encouragement which has been given to elder ^^ ^^' ^' 
scholars and pupil teachers to work for a science certifi- 
cate, and as soon as it is obtained to try for another in 
a different subject, has not been helpful but often mis- 
chievous in its influence on the general education of the 



436 The French Leaving Certificate 

student. The practice of dealing with the parts of 
instruction piecemeal and making separate reports and 
payments in respect of each subject, has often served to 
dislocate the plans of good teachers, and to prevent 
them from considering the education of the scholar as a 
whole. The plan adopted by the Scotch Education 
Department of awarding to the scholar from a secondary 
school leaving certificates, e.g. in mathematics, in Latin, 
Greek, or English, at the choice of the candidate, may be 
justified by the fact that he has generally reached the 
age at which it is legitimate for him to select the subject 
in which he desires to distinguish himself. But such 
a leaving certificate carries with it no assurance that the 
holder. possesses a good general foundation for a liberal 
education. And it would clearly not be a suitable prece- 
dent for the leaving certificate of the elementary school. 
Laboia- Nor can the labour certificates at present awarded by 

CO ijica es. ^^^ Department be regarded as a satisfactory test of 
school work from an educational point of view. So long 
as the Elementary Education Act of 1876, and the 
several Acts which regulate the employment of children 
in factories and workshops remain in force, the award of 
what are called "certificates of proficiency" must con- 
tinue under the present conditions. But these certifi- 
cates attest nothing but a meagre outfit of reading, writing, 
and arithmetic. To "reach" a standard which will sat- 
isfy the Act of Parliament or by-laws of a School Board 
district is to give little or no evidence of general know- 
ledge or intelligence; and the state of the law and of 
public opinion which accepts the passing of the third or 
fourth standard in the three elementary subjects as a 
reason for the early withdrawal of a child from school to 
labour for which he is ill-prepared is as injurious in its 
effect on the schools as it is inimical to the true interests 



TJie Scotch Certificate 437 

of the scholars and their parents. A legal minimum is 
often interpreted by poor parents as if it were the maxi- 
mum, or at least as if it were sufficient; and the official 
use of the word " proficiency " in connexion with the bare 
requirements of a low standard according to the first 
schedule in the appendix of the Code sometimes conveys, 
to those whose sympathy with educational authorities it 
is of the utmost importance to secure, a false and mis- 
leading impression. Moreover, the fact that the labour 
certificate has a pecuniary value and that to withhold it 
from a family struggling with poverty seems unkind or 
inconsiderate, often causes a not unreasonable leniency 
in the examination, and materially diminishes the educa- 
tional value of the certificate. It may well be doubted 
whether the imposition of legal restraints and disabilities 
on ill-instructed children, or the encouragement of early 
exemption from school attendance in the case of scholars 
who happen to be precocious is a wise expedient for 
securing the true improvement which we all desire. 
Probably it will be found in the long run that we may 
rely more safely on measures serving to keep prominently 
in public view the goal which ought to be reached, and 
a just estimate of the work which throughout its whole 
course a good school ought to do for its pupils. 

From this point of view, the merit certificate provided The Scotch 
in the regulations of the Scotch Education Department ^^''^'/^"^^ 

*^ . . ^ of merit. 

deserves the attentive consideration of school authorities 
on this side of the Tweed: — Article 29 of the Scotch 
Code contains this provision : — 

"A certificate of merit will be granted once only by the Depart- 
ment to any scholar over 12 years of age who satisfies the Inspector 
that he has attained a standard of thorough efficiency in the three 
elementary subjects, as well as in the class subjects (at least two) 
professed in the school. 



438 TJie French Leaving Certificate 

"The managers will furnish a list (on a schedule supplied by the 
department on special application by the managers) of the scholars 
to be presented for merit certificates ; and the teacher must certify 
to the character and conduct of each pupil admitted to the examina- 
tion. 

"The merit certificate will attest thorough efficiency in the three 
elementary subjects, and will state the class subjects and specific 
subjects (if any) taken by the scholar to whom it is granted. No 
merit certificate will be issued to a scholar who has not mastered all 
the standards set forth in Article 28 (elementary subjects) or who 
does not shew ease and fluency in reading, considerable fluency in 
writing and composition, and the power of applying the rules of 
arithmetic in a way likely to prove useful in the common affairs of 
life. Some test of mental arithmetic will also be applied." 

Conditions Thus the experience gained in Foreign countries, 

^^//^/"^' especially that of the Ce7-tificat d' etudes piijjiaires in 

applying France and Belgium, coincides with that acquired in 

this ex- ^j-^g northern part of our own island, and reveals the 

perience 

to Eng- existence of a want which our English system does not 

land. supply. In seeking to apply this experience to our 

own special circumstances and needs, two or three 

preliminary considerations appear to deserve some 

weight: — 

(i) The examination should not be competitive, 
and should not have for its prominent object the dis- 
covery or reward of exceptional merit. Its purpose 
should be to set before schools and scholars generally 
the nature and scope of a good elementary education, 
and to offer such a test as a boy or girl of average 
diligence and intelligence ought to attain. 

(2) No prize or immediate pecuniary advantage 
should be associated with it. No legal enactment need 
enforce it, and no penalty should be incurred by those 
who do not possess it. Its value should depend entirely 
on the quality of the attainments it professed to attest, 



The Primary School Course 439 

on the fairness and thoroughness of the examination, 
and on the increased appreciation year by year of the 
worth of a good education on the part of parents and the 
public. Considered as an instrument for raising and 
maintaining the standard of instruction, the award of a 
leaving certificate should be regarded as an educational 
measure only; and the less teachers and examiners are 
liable to be influenced by compassion to individuals, or 
hy regard to the pecuniary effect of the award, the 
better. 

(3) In measuring the claims of a scholar to receive 
a certificate regard should not be had to the number of 
subjects he takes up, or to the grants he has enabled the 
school to earn. Nor should any authority fix the relative 
importance of certain subjects, or seek to enforce, e.g. 
in rural districts, the study of agriculture, or in great 
towns the study either of commercial account keeping 
or of any particular local handicraft. The chief objects 
to be kept in view are to secure that a satisfactory use 
has been made of a good elementary course, and that this 
course, while including all the necessary rudiments of 
learning, shall leave room for optional subjects adapted, 
in different places, to the local requirements and to the 
particular aptitudes and qualifications of teachers. 

These general conditions being premised, it remains T/ie ideal 
to consider what it is that education — so far as its results ^^/^"^"^'■^ 
are ascertainable by examination — should have accom- course. 
plished for a scholar who quits an elementary school at 
the age of thirteen or fourteen. We cannot escape the 
enumeration of details or the authorization of some sort 
of syllabus, although we may admit that the attention of 
teachers has too often been directed rather to the list of 
separate subjects than to a rounded and complete scheme 
of discipline and training as a whole. 



440 TJie Fr'cnch Leaving Certificate 

Now the curriculum of every school ought to com- 
prise : — 

(i) Reading, writing, and arithmetic, as laid down 
in the several standards of the Education Department, 
up to the seventh. 

(2) The Enghsh language, with the elements of 
grammar and exercises in English composition. 

(3) The outhnes, at least, of British geography and 
English history. 

(4) The rudiments of physical and experimental 
science. 

(5) Some acquaintance with good literature, and the 
learning by heart of choice passages from the best 
authors. 

(6) Drawing, needlework (for girls), and for boys 
some other form of manual instruction. 

(7) Moral and religious instruction. 

This item is not placed last through any doubt of its 
supreme importance, but simply because of the impossi- 
bility of estimating it accurately, and because, even if it 
admitted of exact measurement, the officers of the State 
are not the persons to perform the task. 
Some In regard, to the items marked i, 2, 3, and 5, it is 

\^Hyjrll<i reasonable to expect that satisfactory evidence of a 
tolerably uniform kind might be expected from all candi- 
dates alike. As to 4 and 6, considerable diversities of 
plan and practice may properly be looked for and en- 
couraged. In science, for example, one school may 
cultivate mechanics, chemistry, or some other subject 
having a visible and immediate application to industry 
and to success in business ; and another may prefer the 
sciences which, intellectn illy, have a higher value though 
they have no obvious bearing on money-getting, or the 



subjects. 



optional Subjects 441 

business of life. It may suffice to mention two examples 
of what is here meant. Natural history — the study of 
plants and animals, the classification and arrangement of 
specimens — is well calculated to exercise the observant 
faculty, and to train the scholar to accuracy and to 
systematic thinking, although its immediate utility is not 
obvious at first sight. Astronomy, too, has been strangely 
neglected in school curricula, probably because it is of no 
commercial importance and no prizes are obtainable for 
pursuing it. Yet there is no study better calculated to 
exalt the imagination, to enlarge the mental horizon of the 
student, and to help him to know the universe he lives 
in, and his own place in it. A teacher who is interested 
in this subject, and who helps his scholars to observe the 
motion of the stars, to discriminate fixed stars from 
planets, and to know something of the moon and its 
phases, ought to find that his efforts are encouraged 
and that any results he can achieve are duly recog- 
nized. 

Besides its regular course of lessons, as prescribed in 
its time-table, every good school ought to do something 
to call forth latent power and sympathy, and to stimulate 
the love of reading and enquiry, and the desire for further 
knowledge. The teacher who devises any new plan for 
securing these objects should have the opportunity of 
submitting his plan to the official examiner, and securing 
due credit for any optional subject which has a truly 
formative and educational character. In no other way 
can we hope to escape from a stereotyped and barren 
routine, and to enlist in the development of national 
education the sympathies, the inventiveness, and the varied 
knowledge of the best teachers. 

It is highly desirable that some part of the examina- Oral cx- 
tion should be oral, and should be designed rather to '^^"■^^^'^ ^^"' 



442 The French Leaving Certificate 

test a scholar's general intelligence, his knowledge of the 
meaning of what he reads, and his interest in his school 
work, than the accuracy of his information. It is also 
important that a certificate of good character and at- 
tendance at school should be a condition precedent to 
admission to examination. 
The One great need in our present social and educational 

h,f.,..„ arransfements is the establishment of closer relation 
school ajid between the school and the scholar's home. The public 
opinion which in Scotland, and in France, Germany, and 
Switzerland, has led to a high appreciation of the bless- 
ings of a good education, hardly exists to the same 
extent among the poorer EngHsh parents, although it is 
yearly becoming more pronounced. It is greatly helped 
by school lending libraries, by school savings banks, by 
scholarships and exhibitions obtainable by merit, and 
tenable in technical or other higher schools. It was in 
some degree assisted by the now disused duplicate 
schedule, which furnished year by year particulars acces- 
sible to the parents, and enabled them to tell the progress 
of their children. It would probably be helped yet 
more, if as in America the parents were annually invited 
to a public ceremony, at which opportunity was afforded 
to see something of the methods pursued in the school, 
and of the results produced. But it would be most 
effectually encouraged, if there were — clearly set forth, 
and intelligible to the public — a standard of attainment 
which every scholar ought to reach before quitting the 
elementary school, and if the co-operation of the parents 
were sought in the efforts of school authorities to main- 
tain that standard. It is to be feared that among the 
wage-earning classes there is at present a very imperfect 
recognition of the fact that the practical difference be- 
tween the successful and the unprosperous man is largely 



The relation between Sehool and Home 443 



lependent on the time spent in preparation for the busi- 
ness of Ufe. Every year at school adds to the worth of 
a youth on entering the labour market, and gives him a 
better chance of future advancement. And as it would 
be a serious mistake to increase the inducements to 
shorten the period of school life, the Leaving Certificate 
should in no case be granted before the thirteenth year, 
and should always be given on conditions which pre- 
suppose regular application up to that age. 

It may be added that the value of the certificate The 
would be far greater, if it were granted under the direct ^^^J-^*^" ^ 
authority of the State, than if School Boards, Managing ^r^/z/if^/ by 
Committees, or individual teachers awarded it. There ^^,, '^ ^' 

' rather 

would be better security for the maintenance of a uniform than by 
and impartial standard, and for the absence of local '^f'^^ .""" 

^ ' thoritics. 

and personal influence. Moreover, allowance must 
be made for a very natural and not unreasonable sen- 
timent, which causes the average parent and scholar to 
regard a certificate signed by a pubhc officer, such as 
Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, as a document 
possessing special dignity and as an object of honourable 
ambition. 

In summing up the arguments of this brief paper, it 
is not difficult to forecast some of the consequences 
which might be expected to follow from the official issue 
of leaving certificates by the Education Department to 
the scholars in public elementary schools. It would 
certainly have the effect of defining more exactly the 
course of instruction which should be adopted in such 
schools ; and would afford an additional and much- 
needed safeguard for thoroughness and exactness in 
instruction. It would help teachers in securing discipline 
and regular attendance, if they were able to say that 
without these they would not feel justified in certifying 



444 ^/^^ French Leaving Certificate 

that the scholar was ehgible to be examined. It would 
arouse the interest and sympathy of the parents, and 
give them a new motive for co-operating with the school 
teachers. It would greatly faciliate the work of secondary 
and technical schools, by furnishing them with an appro- 
priate entrance examination. It would help the em- 
ployers of labour to discriminate among the applicants 
for situations. And it is not too much to hope that by 
degrees the influence of the system would serve to make 
clearer in the eyes of the public the relations between 
character, knowledge, and intelligence, on the one hand, 
and, on the other, the honour, prosperity, and usefulness 
of the citizen's life. 



INDEX 



Allegories, 33 

Almshouses, 180 

Ambiguity, 60 

America : its schools for manual 
training, 152; its educational 
provision, 250; Institute of In- 
struction, 256 

Analogy, its uses and limitations, 84 

Analysis v. Synthesis, 115 

Anytus, 65 

Apprenticeship, 148, 149 

Apposition, 135 

Arithmetic, 117 

Arnold, Dr Thomas, 273 

Arnold, M., quoted, 17 

Art, lectures on, 324 

Ascham, Roger, 215, 220, 223, 225 

Astronomy, 129, 441 

Athens, its condition at the time of 
Socrates, 47 

Atmosphere, the moral, of a school, 
95 

Bacon quoted, 13, 61, 123, 155 

Bacon, Sir Nicholas, quoted, 236 

Baltimore University, 207 

Barnard, Henry, 254 

Bastiat, Frederic, 69 

Beale, Miss, of Cheltenham, 405 

Bedford, Duke of, 332 

Belgian apprentice schools, 149 

Bell, Dr Andrew : his career in 
India, 337; his system, 338; his 
preferments, 345; his character, 

351 

Bequest, the right of, 199 

Bible, a teaching book, i 

Biography, its use in teaching his- 
tory, 20 

Birkbeck, Dr, 312 

Blundell, Peter, of Tiverton, quoted, 
239, 241 

Boarding schools and houses, 279 — 
280 

Borth, 286 



Botany, 125 

British and P'oreign School Society, 

327 
Brooks, Bishop Phillips, quoted, 

10, 264 
Browne, Sir Ihomas, quoted, 197 
Brou ning, Mr Oscar, 273 
Brussels, Ecole Modele, the, 161 
Buckle, Mr, 93 
Buss, Miss, 405 

Canada and its educational pro- 
vision, 251 

Canadian Institutes, 260 

Carlyle, 1 1 2 

Catechisms, 384 

Catechising in Church, 385 

Certijicat d'' etudes pri7)iaires, 422 

Certificate hunting, 318 

Chffirephon, 65 

Charitable foundations, 182 

Charity Schools, 191 

Chautauqua, 263 

Chigwell School ordinances, 237 

Child study, 139 

Children's Services, 387 

Christ's Hospital, 401 

Clarendon Code, the, 184 

Clodd, Edward, quoted, 92 

Code Napoleon, the, 216 

Coleridge quoted, 20, 89, 90, 114 

Colet, Dean, 229 

Colston's charities, 184 

Commandments, the Ten, 6 

Comte, 140, 202 

Conference: the Head Masters', 
304; the Head Mistresses', 305 

Co-optation, 212 

Corporate spirit among teachers, 
the, 269 

Crabbe, his description of private 
school, 328 

Cranmer, 240 

Creeds and formularies, 22 

Crito, 77 



445 



446 



Index 



Darwin, Charles, 8i, 98, 104, 112 

David, 31 

David, Herr, on Musical teaching, 

296 
Decoration of the school-room, 298 
L)eductive reasoning, 115, 116 
Defoe, on the education of women, 

399 
Degeneration, lOi 
Degrees, for women, 412 
Delphic oracle, the, 65 
Deuteronomy, 8 
Didactic teaching, 90 
l)ide7'ot, VEcole, 156 
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, the 

Society for, 311 
Disputations, 235 
1 )ivergence, the law of, 104 
Doles, 187 
Drawing, 162 

Ecoles professionellesm France, 155 
Economic Science, 322 
Edinburgh Review, 339 
Educational charities, 190 
I'^lective studies, 108 
Elementary teachers, 315 
EHot, George, quoted, loi 
Elizabeth, Queen, 227 
Endowed Schools Commission, 196 
Endowed Schools Act, 403 
Endowments, 177; for women, 398 
English, the teaching of, 290 
Environment, the law of, 92 
Epictetus quoted, 57 
Erasmus, 220, 231 
Euclid, 116 

Evolution, the doctrine of, 82 
Examination, individual, 432 

Falk, 216 

Fanshaw, Sir Thomas, quoted, 239 
Fees, payment of, 239 
Fellowships at King's College, Cam- 
bridge, 273 
Formularies, 383 
French leaving certificate 421 
French technical schools, 155 
Frobel, 140, 158 
Fuller quoted, 228 



Gay quoted, 35 
Geometry, 116 
George III., 334 
Gibbon, 142 

Giiman, President, quoted, 207 
Girard College, Philadelphia, 185 
Girls' education, 241 
— Public Day School Company, 

Girton College, 410 

Glauco, 54 

Gorgias, 60 

Governing bodies of schools, 211 

Grammar Schools, 141 

Grammar school theory, the, 242 

Greard, M., quoted, 428 

Greek language, the, 218, 244 

Greenwich Hospital, 182 

Grey, Eady Jane, and her studies, 

226, 397 
Grote, ]\Ir, quoted, 62, 66, 67 
Guild, the Teachers', 249 

Handicraft, 66, 146 
Hastings, Lady Betty, 399 
Hebrew Poetry, characteristics of, 

19 
Hegel, 63 
Herbart, 133 

Herbert's Jacula Priidentwn, 25 
History, 318, 319 
H'^nies, Oliver W., quoted, 361 
Home influence, 371 
Huxley, Mr, quoted, 103 

Inductive exercises in language, 134 
Inductive reasoning, 115, 123 
Institutes, Teachers', in America, 

253, 255 
Isaiah's prophecies, 16, 35 
Italy, state of, in 1 6th century, 227 

Jesuits, the, 221 
John, St, a Platonist, 53 
John, St, New Brunswick, meeting 
at, 260 

Kent, Duke of, 336 
Kindergarten, the, 140 
Knox, John, 216 



Index 



44; 



Labour certificates, 436 

Lancaster, Joseph : his early hfe, 
330; his books, 328; his methods, 
340 ; his successes, 336; his fail- 
ures, 347; his character, 352 

Language studies, 247 

Latin the language of the Medieval 
Church, 218 

Leach, Mr A. F., 222 

Lecky, Mr, quoted, 196 

Lectures, University Extension, 312 

Leeds and the Yorkshire College, 

.'53. 

Libraries, Sunday School, 377 

Literature, English, 320 

Louth Grammar School, 230 

Luther, 219, 220 

Lykon, 76 

Lyly, John, first High Master of 

St. Paul's School, 231 
Lyon, John, founder of Harrow, 229 

Macaulay, Lord, quoted, 50 
Madras system, 337, 343 
Magnus, Sir Philip, quoted, 175 
Manchester Grammar School, 230 
Manual training, 147, 160, 164, 

440 
Mason, Sir Josiah and his gifts, 208 
Measures and multiples, 118 
Mechanics' Institutes, 312 
Melitus, 76 
Memory, Verbal, 382 
Meno, the Sophist, 70 
Meteorology, 130 
Mill, J. S., quoted, 102, 203 
Milton, 228 
Mistresses, the Conference of Head, 

305 
Monitorial system, the, 339 
Morant, Mr, quoted, 426 
More, Hannah, 367 
Morley, Mr John, quoted, 25 
Moses as a lawgiver, 6 — 8 
Mulcaster, 238 
Music at Uppingham, 295 

Narrative power, 29 

National Society, the, 327, 338, 343 

Natural history, 125, 127, 322 



Natural selection, 97 
Needlework, 172 
Newnham College, 411 
Newport, R. I., meeting at, 254 

Object lessons, 131 
Optional subjects, 441 
Oral demonstration, 1 21 

— Examinatiun, 441 

Paley's Evidences, 89 

Parables, 31 — 32; of Nature, 34 

Parker, Mr C. S., quoted, 208, 221 

Parkin, Mr G. R., 274, 281 

Paul, St, his vision, 41 ; his sermon 

at Athens, 48 
Paul's, St, School, 136, 403 
Pennsylvania, College Association, 

260 
Pericles, 49 
Pestalozzi, 158, 358; characteristics 

of his teaching, 360; his religious 

purpose, 362 
Pfeiffer, Mrs E., 415 
Phtedo, the, 67 
Phiedrus, 75 
Plato, 53, 76 
Poetrv, as a lesson, 18; of the Bil)le, 

16' 
Portrait Gallery, the National, 28 
Precepts, Moral, 87 
Pre-natal existence, 73 
Preparation for Sunday-school work, 

381 
Primary School Course, the, 439 
Prize system, the, 307 
Professions for women, 395, 418 
Proverbs, 24 

Provincial Colleges in England, 409 
Punishments, 87, 237 

Quadrivium, the, 233 

Questioning, 381 

Quick's Educational Reformers, 226 

Raikes, Robert, 366 
Rawnsley, Rev. H. D., 274 
Reading Circles in America, 265 
Reason v. Understanding, 114 

— training uf, 114 — 144 



448 



Index 



Religious tests, 183 
Reminiscence, the doctrine of, 72 
Renaissance, the, 219 
Retford, East, School, 234 
Rewards, 13 
Rhetor's Art, the, 61 
Rousseau, 361 
Ruskin, Mr, 113, 129 

Sc/iolei/iasler, The, 225 

Schools Inquiry Commission, the, 

193, 283; Report cjuoted, 406 
Science and Art Department, the, 

435 

Scotch leaving certificate, 437 

Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 217 

Seebohm, Mr, quoted, 232 

Seeley, Prof. Sir John, quoted, 12 

Sense training, 360 

Sermon on the Mount, the, 1 1 

Shelley, 89 

Sherriff, Laurence, 229 

Sidgwick, Mr Henry, quoted, 245 

Sidgwick, Mrs, 415 

Skrine, Mr J. H., 274, 285, 290, 
308, 309 

Slojd, 160 

Smiles's, Dr, books, 15 

Smith, Sydney, quoted, 99 

Spencer, Mr Herbert, 83 

Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
Knowledge, 312 

Socrates, his hfe, 51; his conver- 
sations, 52; his disciples, 53; 
his dai/xojv, 63; his view of 
physical science, 67, 171; his 
trial, 76; death, 78 

Socratic dialogue. A, 54 

Solomon's dream, 13, 41 

Sorbon, Robert de, quoted, 136 

Stein, 216 

Strype, quoted, 236 

Sturm of Strasburg, 220 

Sunday, 3, 369 

Sunday Schools, 365 

Symbolical teaching, 2 



Teachers' societies, 324 

Technical Institute, the London, 154 

Technical instruction, 145 

Theological teaching in a Sunday 
School, 389 

Thring, Edward, his life, 274; 
his experience in an elementary 
school, 276; his books, 298; 
and diaries, 304; his work gene- 
rally, 30S 

Toleration Act, the,, 192 

Tone, the, of a school, 96 

Tragedy, the Cireek, 93 

Training Colleges in England, 313 

Training of teachers in Ahierica, 
252 

Trivium, the, 233 

Turgot, 177 

Udal, Nicholas, 225 
University degrees open to women, 
408, 413 

Extension, 309, 311 

Local Examinations, 403 

of London, 407 

Uppingham, 237, 279; its removal 

to Borth, 285; its equipment, 
297; variety of occupation, 292; 
and of games, 294 

Vacations, 237 
Variation of type, 106 
Verbal analysis, 134 
Vision and meditation, 41 

Wayland, Dr, of Brecon, U.S.A. 257 

Whitbread, Mr, 332 

Women and public employments, 

396 
Women as teachers, 305 
Women and Universities, 394 
Women's University, A, 416 
W^oolwich Settlement, the 
Words, the study of, 57, 59 
Wordsworth, quoted, 10, 74 
Worship, Pubhc, 387 



Taylor, Jeremy, quoted, 168 



Xenophon, 53, 76 



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